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A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES 







CORPORAL HOLMES IN THE UNIFORM OF THE 22ND LONDON 
BATTALION, QUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT, 

h. m. imperial army. Frontispiece. 



A YANKEE 
IN THE TRENCHES 



BY 



R. DERBY HOLMES 

CORPORAL OF THE 22D LONDON BATTALION OF THE 
QUEEN'S ROYAL WEST SURREY REGIMENT 



ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



INON-FUlFERf 




SwYXo-cns 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1918 



A\g/\.o 



Copyright, 1918, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



All rights reserved 



Published, January, 1918 
Reprinted, January, 1918 



JAN 237918 



Norfoootr press 

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

Pressvwrk by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



©CU49205 



WttJicution 

To Marion A. Puttee, Southall, Middle- 
sex, England, I Dedicate This Book as a 
Token of Appreciation for All the Loving 
Thoughts and Deeds Bestowed upon Me 
when I Was a Stranger in a Strange Land 



FOREWORD 

T HAVE tried as an American in writing 
this book to give the public a complete 
view of the trenches and life on the Western 
Front as it appeared to me, and also my im- 
pression of conditions and men as I found 
them. It has been a pleasure to write it, 
and now that I have finished I am genuinely 
sorry that I cannot go further. On the lec- 
ture tour I find that people ask me questions, 
and I have tried in this book to give in detail 
many things about the quieter side of war 
that to an audience would seem too tame. 
I feel that the public want to know how the 
soldiers live when not in the trenches, for all 
the time out there is not spent in killing and 
carnage. As in the case of all men in the 
trenches, I heard things and stories that es- 
pecially impressed me, so I have written them 
as hearsay, not taking to myself credit as their 
originator. I trust that the reader will find 
as much joy in the cockney character as I did 



viii FOREWORD 

and which I have tried to show the public; 
let me say now that no finer body of men 
than those Bermondsey boys of my battalion 
could be found. 

I think it fair to say that in compiling the 
trench terms at the end of this book I have 
not copied any war book, but I have given 
in each case my own version of the words, 
though I will confess that the idea and neces- 
sity of having such a list sprang from reading 
Sergeant Empey's "Over the Top." It would 
be impossible to write a book that the people 
would understand without the aid of such a 
glossary. 

It is my sincere wish that after reading this 
book the reader may have a clearer conception 
of what this great world war means and what 
our soldiers are contending with, and that it 
may awaken the American people to the danger 
of Prussianism so that when in the future there 
is a call for funds for Liberty Loans, Red 
Cross work, or Y. M. C. A., there will be no 
slacking, for they form the real triangular 
sign to a successful termination of this terrible 
conflict. R. Derby Holmes. 



CONTENTS 



Foreword 

I Joining the British Army 

II Going In 

III A Trench Raid 

IV A Few Days' Rest in Billets 
V Feeding the Tommies 

VI Hiking to Vimy Ridge 

VII Fascination of Patrol Work . 

VIII On the Go .... 

IX First Sight of the Tanks 

X Following the Tanks into Battle 

XI Prisoners 

XII I Become a Bomber . 

XIII Back on the Somme Again 

XIV The Last Time Over the Top 
XV Bits of Blighty 

XVI Suggestions for "Sammy" 
Glossary of Army Slang 



vn 

1 

16 

28 

38 

51 

65 

77 

95 

114 

127 

137 

145 

166 

179 

189 

200 

209 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Corporal Holmes in the Uniform of the 22nd London 
Battalion, Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment, 
H. M. Imperial Army .... Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Reduced Facsimile of Discharge Certificate of Char- 
acter 4' 

A Heavy Howitzer, Under Camouflage . . .28' 

Over the Top on a Raid 34 v 

Cooking Under Difficulties 56 

Head-on View of a British Tank . . . .124' 

Corporal Holmes with Staff Nurse and Another Pa- 
tient, at Fulham Military Hospital, London, S.W. 190 ' 

Corporal Holmes with Company Office Force, at 
Winchester, England, a Week Prior to Discharge 194 



A YANKEE IN THE 
TRENCHES 

CHAPTER I 

Joining the British Army 

^~\NCE, on the Somme in the fall of 1916, 
^^ when I had been over the top and was 
being carried back somewhat disfigured but 
still in the ring, a cockney stretcher bearer shot 
this question at me : 

"Hi sye, Yank. Wot th' bloody 'ell are 
you in this bloomin' row for? Ayen't there 
no trouble t' 'ome?" 

And for the life of me I couldn't answer. 
After more than a year in the British service 
I could not, on the spur of the moment, say 
exactly why I was there. 

To be perfectly frank with myself and with 
the reader I had no very lofty motives when 



2 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

I took the King's shilling. When the great 
war broke out, I was mildly sympathetic with 
England, and mighty sorry in an indefinite 
way for France and Belgium; but my sym- 
pathies were not strong enough in any direc- 
tion to get me into uniform with a chance of 
being killed. Nor, at first, was I able to work 
up any compelling hate for Germany. The 
abstract idea of democracy did not figure in 
my calculations at all. 

However, as the war went on, it became ap- 
parent to me, as I suppose it must have to 
everybody, that the world was going through 
one of its epochal upheavals; and I figured 
that with so much history in the making, any 
unattached young man would be missing it if 
he did not take a part in the big game. 

I had the fondness for adventure usual in 
young men. I liked to see the wheels go round. 
And so it happened that, when the war was 
about a year and a half old, I decided to get in 
before it was too late. 

On second thought I won't say that it was 
purely love for adventure that took me across. 
There may have been in the back of my head 



JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 3 

a sneaking extra fondness for France, perhaps 
instinctive, for I was born in Paris, although 
my parents were American and I was brought 
to Boston as a baby and have lived here since. 

Whatever my motives for joining the 
British army, they didn't have time to crystal- 
lize until I had been wounded and sent to 
Blighty, which is trench slang for England. 
While recuperating in one of the pleasant 
places of the English country-side, I had time 
to acquire a perspective and to discover that I 
had been fighting for democracy and the 
future safety of the world. I think that my 
experience in this respect is like that of most 
of the young Americans who have volunteered 
for service under a foreign flag. 

I decided to get into the big war game early 
in 1916. My first thought was to go into the 
ambulance service, as I knew several men in 
that work. One of them described the driver's 
life about as follows. He said : 

"The blesses curse you because you jolt 
them. The doctors curse you because you 
don't get the blesses in fast enough. The 
Transport Service curse you because you get 



4 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

in the way. You eat standing up and don't 
sleep at all. You're as likely as anybody to 
get killed, and all the glory you get is the War 
Cross, if you're lucky, and you don't get a 
single chance to kill a Hun." 

That settled the ambulance for me. I 
hadn't wanted particularly to kill a Hun until 
it was suggested that I mightn't. Then I 
wanted to slaughter a whole division. 

So I decided on something where there 
would be fighting. And having decided, I 
thought I would "go the whole hog" and 
work my way across to England on a horse 
transport. 

One day in the first part of February I went, 
at what seemed an early hour, to an office on 
Commercial Street, Boston, where they were 
advertising for horse tenders for England. 
About three hundred men were earlier than I. 
It seemed as though every beach-comber and 
patriot in New England was trying to get 
across. I didn't get the job, but filed my ap- 
plication and was lucky enough to be signed 
on for a sailing on February 22 on the steam- 
ship Cambrian , bound for London. 




£ 4 

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£ i" 






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4? 



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JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 5 

We spent the morning of Washington's 
Birthday loading the horses. These govern- 
ment animals were selected stock and full of 
ginger. They seemed to know that they were 
going to France and resented it keenly. Those 
in my care seemed to regard my attentions as 
a personal affront. 

We had a strenuous forenoon getting the 
horses aboard, and sailed at noon. After we 
had herded in the livestock, some of the of- 
ficers herded up the herders. I drew a pink 
slip with two numbers on it, one showing the 
compartment where I was supposed to sleep, 
the other indicating my bunk. 

That compartment certainly was a glory- 
hole. Most of the men had been drunk the 
night before, and the place had the rich, 
balmy fragrance of a water-front saloon. In- 
cidentally there was a good deal of unauthor- 
ized and undomesticated livestock. I made a 
limited acquaintance with that pretty, playful 
little creature, the "cootie," who was to be- 
come so familiar in the trenches later on. He 
wasn't called a cootie aboard ship, but he was 
the same bird. 



6 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

Perhaps the less said about that trip across 
the better. It lasted twenty-one days. We 
fed the animals three times a day and cleaned 
the stalls once on the trip. I got chewed up 
some and stepped on a few times. Altogether 
the experience was good intensive training for 
the trench life to come; especially the bunks. 
Those sleeping quarters sure were close and 
crawly. 

We landed in London on Saturday night 
about nine-thirty. The immigration inspec- 
tors gave us a quick examination and we were 
turned back to the shipping people, who paid 
us off, — two pounds, equal to about ten dol- 
lars real change. 

After that we rode on the train half an hour 
and then marched through the streets, darkened 
to fool the Zeps. Around one o'clock we 
brought up at Thrawl Street, at the lodgings 
where we were supposed to stop until we were 
started for home. 

The place where we were quartered was a 
typical London doss house. There were forty 
beds in the room with mine, all of them occu- 
pied. All hands were snoring, and the fellow 



JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 7 

in the next cot was going it with the cut-out 
wide open, breaking all records. Most of the 
beds sagged like a hammock. Mine humped 
up in the middle like a pile of bricks. 

I was up early and was directed to the place 
across the way where we were to eat. It was 
labeled "Mother Wolf's. The Universal Pro- 
vider." She provided just one meal of weak 
tea, moldy bread, and rancid bacon for me. 
After that I went to a hotel. I may remark 
in passing that horse tenders, going or coming 
or in between whiles, do not live on the fat 
of the land. 

I spent the day — it was Sunday — seeing 
the sights of Whitechapel, Middlesex Street 
or Petticoat Lane, and some of the slums. 
Next morning it was pretty clear to me that 
two pounds don't go far in the big town. 
I promptly boarded the first bus for Trafalgar 
Square. The recruiting office was just down 
the road in Whitehall at the old Scotland Yard 
office. 

I had an idea when I entered that recruit- 
ing office that the sergeant would receive me 
with open arms. He didn't. Instead he looked 



8 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

me over with unqualified scorn and spat out, 
"Yank, ayen't ye?" 

And I in my innocence briefly answered, 
"Yep." 

"We ayen't tykin' no nootrals," he said, with 
a sneer. And then: "Better go back to Ha- 
merika and 'elp Wilson write 'is blinkin' notes." 

Well, I was mad enough to poke that ser- 
geant in the eye. But I didn't. I retired 
gracefully and with dignity. 

At the door another sergeant hailed me, 
whispering behind his hand, "Hi sye, mytie. 
Come around in the mornin'. Hi'll get ye in." 
And so it happened. 

Next day my man was waiting and marched 
me boldly up to the same chap who had refused 
me the day before. 

" 'Ere's a recroot for ye, Jim," says my friend. 

Jim never batted an eye. He began to 
"awsk" questions and to fill out a blank. 
When he got to the birthplace, my guide cut 
in and said, "Canada." 

The only place I knew in Canada was Campo- 
bello Island, a place where we camped one 
summer, and I gave that. I don't think that 



JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 9 

anything but rabbits was ever born on Campo- 
bello, but it went. For that matter anything 
went. I discovered afterward that the ser- 
geant who had captured me on the street got 
five bob (shillings) for me. 

The physical examination upstairs was elab- 
orate. They told me to strip, weighed me, and 
said I was fit. After that I was taken in to 
an officer — a real officer this time — who 
made me put my hand on a Bible and say yes 
to an oath he rattled off. Then he told me 
I was a member of the Royal Fusiliers, gave 
me two shillings, sixpence and ordered me to 
report at the Horse Guards Parade next day. 
I was in the British army, — just like that ! 

I spent the balance of the day seeing the 
sights of London, and incidentally spending 
my coin. When I went around to the Horse 
Guards next morning, two hundred others, 
new rookies like myself, were waiting. An 
officer gave me another two shillings, sixpence. 
I began to think that if the money kept coming 
along at that rate the British army might turn 
out a good investment. It didn't. 

That morning I was sent out to Hounslow 



10 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

Barracks, and three days later was transferred 
to Dover with twenty others. I was at Dover 
a little more than two months and completed 
my training there. 

Our barracks at Dover was on the heights 
of the cliffs, and on clear days we could look 
across the Channel and see the dim outlines 
of France. It was a fascination for all of us 
to look away over there and to wonder what 
fortunes were to come to us on the battle 
fields of Europe. It was perhaps as well that 
none of us had imagination enough to visualize 
the things that were ahead. 

I found the rookies at Dover a jolly, compan- 
ionable lot, and I never found the routine irk- 
some. We were up at five-thirty, had cocoa 
and biscuits, and then an hour of physical 
drill or bayonet practice. At eight came break- 
fast of tea, bacon, and bread, and then we 
drilled until twelve. Dinner. Out again on 
the parade ground until three thirty. After 
that we were free. 

Nights we would go into Dover and sit 
around the "pubs" drinking ale, or "ayle" 
as the cockney says it. 



JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 11 

After a few weeks, when we were hardened 
somewhat, they began to inflict us with the 
torture known as "night ops." That means 
going out at ten o'clock under full pack, hik- 
ing several miles, and then "manning" the 
trenches around the town and returning to 
barracks at three a.m. 

This wouldn't have been so bad if we had 
been excused parades the following day. But 
no. We had the same old drills except the 
early one, but were allowed to "kip" until 
seven. 

In the two months I completed the mus- 
ketry course, was a good bayonet man, and 
was well grounded in bombing practice. Be- 
sides that I was as hard as nails and had 
learned thoroughly the system of British dis- 
cipline. 

I had supposed that it took at least six 
months to make a soldier, — in fact had been 
told that one could not be turned out who 
would be ten per cent efficient in less than that 
time. That old theory is all wrong. Modern 
warfare changes so fast that the only thing 
that can be taught a man is the basic prin- 



12 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

ciples of discipline, bombing, trench warfare, 
and musketry. Give him those things, a well- 
conditioned body, and a baptism of fire, and 
he will be right there with the veterans, doing 
his bit. 

Two months was all our crowd got at any rate, 
and they were as good as the best, if I do say it. 

My training ended abruptly with a furlough 
of five days for Embarkation Leave, that is, 
leave before going to France. This is a sort 
of good-by vacation. Most fellows realize 
fully that it may be their last look at Blighty, 
and they take it rather solemnly. To a 
stranger without friends in England I can 
imagine that this Embarkation Leave would 
be either a mighty lonesome, dismal affair, or 
a stretch of desperate, homesick dissipation. 
A chap does want to say good-by to some one 
before he goes away, perhaps to die. He wants 
to be loved and to have some one sorry that 
he is going. 

I was invited by one of my chums to spend 
the leave with him at his home in Southall, 
Middlesex. His father, mother and sister wel- 
comed me in a way that made me know it 



JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 13 

was my home from the minute I entered the 
door. They took me into their hearts with a 
simple hospitality and whole-souled kindness 
that I can never forget. I was a stranger in 
a strange land and they made me one of their 
own. I shall never be able to repay all the 
loving thoughts and deeds of that family and 
shall remember them while I live. My chum's 
mother I call Mother too. It is to her that I 
have dedicated this book. 

After my delightful few days of leave, 
things moved fast. I was back in Dover just 
two days when I, with two hundred other 
men, was sent to Winchester. Here we were 
notified that we were transferred to the Queen's 
Royal West Surrey Regiment. 

This news brought a wild howl from the 
men. They wanted to stop with the Fusiliers. 
It is part of the British system that every man 
is taught the traditions and history of his 
regiment and to know that his is absolutely 
the best in the whole army. In a surprisingly 
short time they get so they swear by their 
own regiment and by their officers, and they 
protest bitterly at a transfer. 



14 JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 

Personally I didn't care a rap. I had early 
made up my mind that I was a very small 
pebble on the beach and that it was up to me 
to obey orders and keep my mouth shut. 

On June 17, some eighteen hundred of us 
were moved down to Southampton and put 
aboard the transport for Havre. The next 
day we were in France, at Harfleur, the central 
training camp outside Havre. 

We were supposed to undergo an intensive 
training at Harfleur in the various forms of 
gas and protection from it, barbed wire and 
methods of construction of entanglements, 
musketry, bombing, and bayonet fighting. 

Harfleur was a miserable place. They re- 
fused to let us go in town after drill. Also I 
managed to let myself in for something that 
would have kept me in camp if town leave had 
been allowed. 

The first day there was a call for a volunteer 
for musketry instructor. I had qualified and 
jumped at it. When I reported, an old Scotch 
sergeant told me to go to the quartermaster 
for equipment. I said I already had full 
equipment. Whereupon the sergeant laughed 



JOINING THE BRITISH ARMY 15 

a rumbling Scotch laugh and told me I had to 
go into kilts, as I was assigned to a Highland 
contingent. 

I protested with violence and enthusiasm, 
but it didn't do any good. They gave me a 
dinky little pleated petticoat, and when I 
demanded breeks to wear underneath, I got 
the merry ha ha. Breeks on a Scotchman? 
Never ! 

Well, I got into the fool things, and I felt 
as though I was naked from ankle to wishbone. 
I couldn't get used to the outfit. I am naturally 
a modest man. Besides, my architecture was 
never intended for bare-leg effects. I have 
no dimples in my knees. 

So I began an immediate campaign for trans- 
fer back to the Surreys. I got it at the end of 
ten days, and with it came a hurry call from 
somewhere at the front for more troops. 



CHAPTER II 

Going In 

npHE excitement of getting away from 
camp and the knowledge that we were 
soon to get into the thick of the big game 
pleased most of us. We were glad to go. 
At least we thought so. 

Two hundred of us were loaded into side- 
door Pullmans, forty to the car. It was a 
kind of sardine or Boston Elevated effect, 
and by the time we reached Rouen, twenty- 
four hours later, we had kinks in our legs and 
corns on our elbows. Also we were hungry, 
having had nothing but bujly beef and bis- 
cuits. We made "char", which is trench 
slang for tea, in the station, and after two 
hours moved up the line again, this time in 
real coaches. 

Next night we were billeted at Barlin — 
don't get that mixed up with Berlin, it's not 
the same — in an abandoned convent within 



GOING IN 17 

range of the German guns. The roar of 
artillery was continuous and sounded pretty 
close. 

Now and again a shell would burst near by 
with a kind of hollow "spung", but for some 
reason we didn't seem to mind. I had ex- 
pected to get the shivers at the first sound 
of the guns and was surprised when I woke 
up in the morning after a solid night's sleep. 

A message came down from the front trenches 
at daybreak that we were wanted and wanted 
quick. We slung together a dixie of char and 
some bacon and bread for breakfast, and 
marched around to the " quarters ", where they 
issued "tin hats", extra "ammo", and a 
second gas helmet. A good many of the men 
had been out before, and they did the cus- 
tomary "grousing" over the added load. 

The British Tommy growls or grouses over 
anything and everything. He's never happy 
unless he's unhappy. He resents especially 
having anything officially added to his pack, 
and you can't blame him, for in full equip- 
ment he certainly is all dressed up like a pack 
horse. 



18 GOING IN 

After the issue we were split up into four 
lots for the four companies of the battalion, 
and after some "wangling" I got into Com- 
pany C, where I stopped all the time I was 
in France. I was glad, because most of my 
chums were in that unit. 

We got into our packs and started up the 
line immediately. As we neared the lines we 
were extended into artillery formation, that 
is, spread out so that a shell bursting in the 
road would inflict fewer casualties. 

At Bully-Grenay, the point where we entered 
the communication trenches, guides met us and 
looked us over, commenting most frankly and 
freely on our appearance. They didn't seem 
to think we would amount to much, and said 
so. They agreed that the "bloomin' Yank" 
must be a "bloody fool" to come out there. 
There were times later when I agreed with 
them. 

It began to rain as we entered the communi- 
cation trench, and I had my first taste of mud. 
That is literal, for with mud knee-deep in a 
trench just wide enough for two men to pass 
you get smeared from head to foot. 



GOING IN 19 

Incidentally, as we approached nearer the 
front, I got my first smell of the dead. It is 
something you never get away from in the 
trenches. So many dead have been buried 
so hastily and so lightly that they are con- 
stantly being uncovered by shell bursts. The 
acrid stench pervades everything, and is so 
thick you can fairly taste it. It makes nearly 
everybody deathly sick at first, but one be- 
comes used to it as to anything else. 

This communication trench was over two 
miles long, and it seemed like twenty. We 
finally landed in a support trench called " Me- 
chanics' ' (every trench has a name, like a 
street), and from there into the first-line 
trench. 

I have to admit a feeling of disappointment 
in that first trench. I don't know what I 
expected to see, but what I did see was just 
a long, crooked ditch with a low step running 
along one side, and with sandbags on top. 
Here and there was a muddy, bedraggled 
Tommy half asleep, nursing a dirty and muddy 
rifle on "sentry go." Everything was very 
quiet at the moment — no rifles popping, as 



20 GOING IN 

I had expected, no bullets flying, and, as it 
happened, absolutely no shelling in the whole 
sector. 

I forgot to say that we had come up by 
daylight. Ordinarily troops are moved at 
night, but the communication trench from 
Bully-Grenay was very deep and was pro- 
tected at points by little hills, and it was 
possible to move men in the daytime. 

Arrived in the front trench, the sergeant- 
major appeared, crawling out of his dug-out 
— the usual place for a sergeant-major — 
and greeted us with, 

"Keep your nappers down, you rooks. 
Don't look over the top. It ayen't 'ealthy." 

It is the regular warning to new men. For 
some reason the first emotion of the rookie 
is an overpowering curiosity. He wants to 
take a peep into No Man's Land. It feels 
safe enough when things are quiet. But 
there's always a Fritzie over yonder with a 
telescope-sighted rifle, and it's about ten to one 
he'll get you if you stick the old "napper" up in 
daylight. 

The Germans, by the way, have had the 



GOING IN %\ 

"edge" on the Allies in the matter of sniping, 
as in almost all lines of artillery and musketry 
practice. The Boche sniper is nearly always 
armed with a periscope-telescope rifle. This 
is a specially built super-accurate rifle mounted 
on a periscope frame. It is thrust up over 
the parapet and the image of the opposing 
parapet is cast on a little ground-glass screen 
on which are two crossed lines. At one hun- 
dred fifty yards or less the image is brought 
up to touching distance seemingly. Fritz 
simply trains his piece on some low place or 
anywhere that a head may be expected. When 
one appears on the screen, he pulls the trigger, 
— and you "click it" if you happen to be on 
the other or receiving end. The shooter never 
shows himself. 

I remember the first time I looked through 
a periscope I had no sooner thrust the thing 
up than a bullet crashed into the upper mirror, 
splintering it. Many times I have stuck up 
a cap on a stick and had it pierced. 

The British sniper, on the other hand — at 
least in my time — had a plain telescope rifle 
and had to hide himself behind old masonry, 



22 GOING IN 

tree trunks, or anything convenient, and 
camouflaged himself in all sorts of ways. At 
that he was constantly in danger. 

I was assigned to Platoon 10 and found they 
were a good live bunch. Corporal Wells was 
the best of the lot, and we became fast friends. 
He helped me learn a lot of my new duties 
and the trench "lingo", which is like a new 
language, especially to a Yank. 

Wells started right in to make me feel at 
home and took me along with two others of 
the new men down to our "apartments", a 
dug-out built for about four, and housing ten. 

My previous idea of a dug-out had been a 
fairly roomy sort of cave, somewhat damp, but 
comparatively comfortable. Well, this hole 
was about four and a half feet high — you had 
to get in doubled up on your hands and knees 
— about iive by six feet on the sides, and 
there was no floor, just muck. There was 
some sodden, dirty straw and a lot of old 
moldy sandbags. Seven men and their equip- 
ment were packed in here, and we made ten. 

There was a charcoal brazier going in the 
middle with two or three mess tins of char 



GOING IN 23 

boiling away. Everybody was smoking, and 
the place stunk to high heaven, or it would 
have if there hadn't been a bit of burlap over 
the door. 

I crowded up into a corner with my back 
against the mud wall and my knees under my 
chin. The men didn't seem overglad to see 
us, and groused a good deal about the extra 
crowding. They regarded me with extra dis- 
favor because I was a lance corporal, and they 
disapproved of any young whipper-snapper 
just out from Blighty with no trench experience 
pitchforked in with even a slight superior 
rank. I had thought up to then that a lance 
corporal was pretty near as important as a 
brigadier. 

"We'll soon tyke that stripe off ye, me bold 
lad," said one big cockney. 

They were a decent lot after all. Since we 
were just out from Blighty, they showered us 
with questions as to how things looked "t' 
'ome." And then somebody asked what was 
the latest song. Right here was where I 
made my hit and got in right. I sing a bit, 
and I piped up with the newest thing from 



24 GOING IN 

the music halls, "Tyke Me Back to Blighty." 
Here it is : 

Tyke me back to dear old Blighty, 
Put me on the tryne for London town, 
Just tyke me over there 
And drop me anywhere, 
Manchester, Leeds, or Birmingham, 
I don't care. 

I want to go see me best gal ; 
Cuddlin' up soon we'll be, 
Hytey iddle de eyety. 
Tyke me back to Blighty, 
That's the plyce for me. 

doesn't look like much and I'm afraid 
my rendition of cockney dialect into print 
isn't quite up to Kipling's. But the song 
had a pretty little lilting melody, and it went 
big. They made me sing it about a dozen 
times and were all joining in at the end. 

Then they got sentimental — and gloomy. 

"Gawd lumme!" says the big fellow who 
had threatened my beloved stripes. "Wot a 
life. Squattin' 'ere in the bloody mud like a 
blinkin' frog. Fightin' fer wot ? Wot, I arsks 
yer ? Gawd lumme ! I'd give me bloomin' 
napper to stroll down the Strand agyne wif 



GOING IN 25 

me swagger stick an' drop in a private bar 
an' 'ave me go of 'Aig an' 'Aig." 

"Garn," cuts in another Tommy. "Yer 
blinkin' 'igh wif yer wants, ayen't ye? An' 
yer 'Aig an' 'Aig. Drop me down in Great 
Lime Street (Liverpool) an' it's me fer the 
Golden Sheaf, and a pint of bitter, an' me a 
'oldin' 'Arriet's 'and over th' bar. I'm a 
courtin' 'er when," etc., etc. 

And then a fresh-faced lad chirps up: "T' 
'ell wif yer Lonnon an' yer whuskey. Gimme 
a jug o' cider on the sunny side of a 'ay rick 
in old Surrey. Gimme a happle tart to go 
wif it. Gawd, I'm fed up on bully beef." 

And so it went. All about pubs and bar- 
maids and the things they'd eat and drink, 
and all of it Blighty. 

They were in the midst of a discussion of 
what part of the body was most desirable to 
part with for a permanent Blighty wound 
when a young officer pushed aside the burlap 
and wedged in. He was a lieutenant and was 
in command of our platoon. His name was 
Blofeld. 

Blofeld was most democratic. He shook 



26 GOING IN 

hands with the new men and said he hoped 
we'd be live wires, and then he told us what 
he wanted. There was to be a raid the next 
night and he was looking for volunteers. 

Nobody spoke for a long minute, and then 
I offered. 

I think I spoke more to break the embarrass- 
ing silence than anything else. I think, too, 
that I was led a little by a kind of youthful 
curiosity, and it may be that I wanted to 
appear brave in the eyes of these men who 
so evidently held me more or less in contempt 
as a newcomer. 

Blofeld accepted me, and one of the other 
new men offered. He was taken too. 

It turned out that all the older men were 
married and that they were not expected to 
volunteer. At least . there was no disgrace 
attaching to a refusal. 

After Blofeld left, Sergeant Page told us 
we'd better get down to "kip" while we could. 
"Kip" in this case meant closing our eyes 
and dozing. I sat humped up in my original 
position through the night. There wasn't 
room to stretch out. 



GOING IN 27 

Along toward morning I began to itch, and 
found I had made the acquaintance of that 
gay and festive little soldier's enemy, the 
"cooty." The cootie, or the "chat" as he 
is called by the officers, is the common body 
louse. Common is right. I never got rid 
of mine until I left the service. Sometimes 
when I get to thinking about it, I believe I 
haven't yet. 



CHAPTER III 

A Trench Raid 

TN the morning the members of the raiding 
party were taken back a mile or so to the 
rear and were given instruction and rehearsal. 
This was the first raid that "Batt" had ever 
tried, and the staff was anxious to have it a 
success. There were fifty in the party, and 
Blofeld, who had organized the raid, beat our 
instructions into us until we knew them by 
heart. 

The object of a raid is to get into the enemy's 
trenches by stealth if possible, kill as many as 
possible, take prisoners if practicable, do a 
lot of damage, and get away with a whole hide. 

We got back to the front trenches just before 
dark. I noticed a lot of metal cylinders ar- 
ranged along the parapet. They were about 
as big as a stovepipe and four feet long, painted 
brown. They were the gas containers. They 
were arranged about four or five to a traverse, 



A TRENCH RAID 29 

and were connected up by tubes and were 
covered with sandbags. This was the poison 
gas ready for release over the top through 
tubes. 

The time set for our stunt was eleven p.m. 
Eleven o'clock was "zero." The system on 
the Western Front, and, in fact, all fronts, is 
to indicate the time fixed for any event as 
zero. Anything before or after is spoken of 
as plus or minus zero. 

Around five o'clock we were taken back to 
Mechanics trench and fed — a regular meal 
with plenty of everything, and all good. It 
looked rather like giving a condemned man a 
hearty meal, but grub is always acceptable 
to a soldier. 

After that we blacked our faces. This is 
always done to prevent the whiteness of the 
skin from showing under the flare lights. Also 
to distinguish your own men when you get to 
the Boche trench. 

Then we wrote letters and gave up our 
identification discs and were served with per- 
suader sticks or knuckle knives, and with 
"Mills" bombs. 



30 A TRENCH RAID 

The persuader is a short, heavy bludgeon 
with a nail-studded head. You thump Fritz 
on the head with it. Very handy at close 
quarters. The knuckle knife is a short dagger 
with a heavy brass hilt that covers the hand. 
Also very good for close work, as you can 
either strike or stab with it. 

We moved up to the front trenches at about 
half -past ten. At zero minus ten, that is, 
ten minutes of eleven, our artillery opened up. 
It was the first bombardment I had ever been 
under, and it seemed as though all the guns 
in the world were banging away. After- 
wards I found that it was comparatively 
light, but it didn't seem so then. 

The guns were hardly started when there 
was a sound like escaping steam. Jerry leaned 
over and shouted in my ear: "There goes the 
gas. May it finish the blighters." 

Blofeld came dashing up just then, very 
much excited because he found we had not 
put on our masks, through some slip-up in 
the orders. We got into them quick. But 
as it turned out there was no need. There 
was a fifteen-mile wind blowing, which carried 



A TRENCH RAID 31 

the gas away from us very rapidly. In fact 
it blew it across the Boche trenches so fast 
that it didn't bother them either. 

The barrage fire kept up right up to zero, 
as per schedule. At thirty seconds of eleven 
I looked at my watch and the din was at its 
height. At exactly eleven it stopped short. 
Fritz was still sending some over, but com- 
paratively there was silence. After the ear- 
splitting racket it was almost still enough to 
hurt. 

And in that silence over the top we went. 

Lanes had been cut through our wire, and 
we got through them quickly. The trenches 
were about one hundred twenty yards 
apart and we still had nearly one hundred 
to go. We dropped and started to crawl. I 
skinned both my knees on something, prob- 
ably old wire, and both hands. I could feel 
the blood running into my puttees, and my 
rifle bothered me as I was afraid of jabbing 
Jerry, who was just ahead of me as first bayonet 
man. 

They say a drowning man or a man in great 
danger reviews his past. I didn't. I spent 



32 A TRENCH RAID 

those few minutes wondering when the machine- 
gun fire would come. 

I had the same "gone" feeling in the pit 
of the stomach that you have when you drop 
fast in an elevator. The skin on my face felt 
tight, and I remember that I wanted to pucker 
my nose and pull my upper lip down over my 
teeth. 

We got clean up to their wire before they 
spotted us. Their entanglements had been 
flattened by our barrage fire, but we had to 
get up to pick our way through, and they saw 
us. 

Instantly the "Very" lights began to go 
up in scores, and hell broke loose. They 
must have turned twenty machine guns on 
us, or at us, but their aim evidently was high, 
for they only "clicked" two out of our im- 
mediate party. We had started with ten 
men, the other fifty being divided into three 
more parties farther down the line. 

When the machine guns started, we charged. 
Jerry and I were ahead as bayonet men, with 
the rest of the party following with buckets of 
"Mills" bombs and "Stokeses." 



A TRENCH RAID 33 

It was pretty light, there were so many 
flares going up from both sides. When I 
jumped on the parapet, there was a whaling 
big Boche looking up at me with his rifle 
resting on the sandbags. I was almost on 
the point of his bayonet. 

For an instant I stood with a kind of para- 
lyzed sensation, and there flashed through 
my mind the instructions of the manual for 
such a situation, only I didn't apply those 
instructions to this emergency. 

Instead I thought — if such a flash could be 
called thinking — how I, as an instructor, 
would have told a rookie to act, working on 
a dummy. I had a sort of detached feeling 
as though this was a silly dream. 

Probably this hesitation didn't last more 
than a second. 

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw 
Jerry lunge, and I lunged too. Why that 
Boche did not fire I don't know. Perhaps he 
did and missed. Anyhow I went down and in 
on him, and the bayonet went through his throat. 

Jerry had done his man in and all hands 
piled into the trench. 



34 A TRENCH RAID 

Then we started to race along the traverses. 
We found a machine gun and put an eleven- 
pound high-explosive ' ' Stokes ' ' under it . Three 
or four Germans appeared, running down com- 
munication trenches, and the bombers sent a 
few Millses after them. Then we came to a 
dug-out door — in fact, several, as Fritz, 
like a woodchuck, always has more than one 
entrance to his burrow. We broke these in 
in jig time and looked down a thirty-foot hole 
on a dug-out full of gray backs. There must 
have been a lot of them. I could plainly see 
four or five faces looking up with surprised 
expressions. 

Blofeld chucked in two or three Millses and 
away we went. 

A little farther along we came to the en- 
trance of a mine shaft, a kind of incline running 
toward our lines. Blofeld went in it a little 
way and flashed his light. He thought it was 
about forty yards long. We put several of 
our remaining Stokeses in that and wrecked 
it. ' ■ ' 

Turning the corner of the next traverse, I 
saw Jerry drop his rifle and unlimber his per- 



A TRENCH RAID 35 

suader on a huge German who had just rounded 
the corner of the "bay." He made a good 
job of it, getting him in the face, and must 
have simply caved him in, but not before he 
had thrown a bomb. I had broken my bayonet 
prying the dug-out door off and had my gun 
up-ended — clubbed. 

When I saw that bomb coming, I bunted at 
it like Ty Cobb trying to sacrifice. It was 
the only thing to do. I choked my bat and 
poked at the bomb instinctively, and by sheer 
good luck fouled the thing over the parapet* 
It exploded on the other side. 

"Blimme eyes," says Jerry, "that's cool 
work. You saved us the wooden cross that 
time." 

We had found two more machine guns and 
were planting Stokeses under them when we 
heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A 
good gunner gets so he can play a tune on a 
Lewis, and the device is frequently used for 
signals. This time he thumped out the old 
one — "All policemen have big feet." Rat- 
a-tat-tat — tat, tat. 

It didn't come any too soon. 



36 A TRENCH RAID 

As we scrambled over the parapet we saw a 
big party of Germans coming up from the 
second trenches. They were out of the com- 
munication trenches and were coming across 
lots. There must have been fifty of them, 
outnumbering us five or six to one. 

We were out of bombs, Jerry had lost his 
rifle, and mine had no "ammo." Blofeld 
fired the last shot from his revolver and, 
believe me, we hooked it for home. 

We had been in their trenches just three 
and a half minutes. 

Just as we were going through their wire a 
bomb exploded near and got Jerry in the head. 
We dragged him in and also the two men that 
had been clicked on the first fire. Jerry got 
Blighty on his wound, but was back in two 
months. The second time he wasn't so lucky. 
He lies now somewhere in France with a 
wooden cross over his head. 

Did that muddy old trench look good when 
we tumbled in ? Oh, Boy ! The staff was 
tickled to pieces and complimented us all. 
We were sent out of the lines that night and 
in billets got hot food, high-grade "fags", a 



A TRENCH RAID 37 

real bath, a good stiff rum ration, and letters 
from home. 

Next morning we heard the results of the 
raid. One party of twelve never returned. 
Besides that we lost seven men killed. The 
German loss was estimated at about one 
hundred casualties, six machine guns and 
several dug-outs destroyed, and one mine 
shaft put out of business. We also brought 
back documents of value found by one party 
in an officer's dug-out. 

Blofeld got the military cross for the night's 
work, and several of the enlisted men got the 
D. C. M. 

Altogether it was a successful raid. The 
best part of it was getting back. 



CHAPTER IV 

A Few Days' Rest in Billets 

A FTER the strafing we had given Fritz 
on the raid, he behaved himself reasonably 
well for quite a while. It was the first raid 
that had been made on that sector for a long 
time, and we had no doubt caught the Ger- 
mans off their guard. 

Anyhow for quite a spell afterwards they 
were very "windy" and would send up the 
"Very" lights on the slightest provocation 
and start the "typewriters" a-rattling. Fritz 
was right on the job with his eye peeled all the 
time. 

In fact he was so keen that another raid 
that was attempted ten days later failed 
completely because of a rapidly concentrated 
and heavy machine-gun fire, and in another, 
a day or two later, our men never got beyond 



A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 39 

our own wire and had thirty-eight casualties 
out of fifty men engaged. 

But so far as anything but defensive work 
was concerned, Fritz was very meek. He sent 
over very few "minnies" or rifle grenades, and 
there was hardly any shelling of the sector. 

Directly after the raid, we who were in the 
party had a couple of days "on our own" 
at the little village of Bully-Grenay, less than 
three miles behind the lines. This is directly 
opposite Lens, the better known town which 
figures so often in the dispatches. 

Bully-Grenay had been a place of perhaps 
one thousand people. It had been fought 
over and through and around early in the 
war, and was pretty well battered up. There 
were a few houses left unhit and the town hall 
and several shops. The rest of the place was 
ruins, but about two hundred of the inhab- 
itants still stuck to their old homes. For 
some reason the Germans did not shell Bully- 
Grenay, that is, not often. Once in a while 
they would lob one in just to let the people 
know they were not forgotten. 

There was a suspicion that there were spies 



40 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 

in the town and that that accounted for the 
Germans laying off, but whatever was the 
cause the place was safer than most villages 
so near the lines. 

Those two days in repose at Bully-Grenay 
were a good deal of a farce. We were entirely 
"on our own", it is true, no parade, no duty 
of any kind — but the quarters — oof ! We 
were billeted in the cellars of the battered- 
down houses. They weren't shell-proof. That 
didn't matter much, as there wasn't any 
shelling, but there might have been. The 
cellars were dangerous enough without, what 
with tottering walls and overhanging chunks 
of masonry. 

Moreover they were a long way from water- 
proof. Imagine trying to find a place to sleep 
in an old ruin half full of rainwater. The dry 
places were piled up with brick and mortar, 
but we managed to clean up some half-shel- 
tered spots for "kip" and we lived through it. 

The worst feature of these billets was the 
rats. They were the biggest I ever saw, great, 
filthy, evil-smelling, grayish-red fellows, as 
big as a good-sized cat. They would hop out 



A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 41 

of the walls and scuttle across your face with 
their wet, cold feet, and it was enough to drive 
you insane. One chap in our party had a 
natural horror of rats, and he nearly went 
crazy. We had to "kip" with our greatcoats 
pulled up over our heads, and then the beggars 
would go down and nibble at our boots. 

The first day somebody found a fox terrier, 
evidently lost and probably the pet of some 
officer. We weren't allowed to carry mas- 
cots, although we had a kitten that we smug- 
gled along for a long time. This terrier was a 
well-bred little fellow, and we grabbed him. 
We spent a good part of both mornings digging 
out rats for him and staged some of the grand- 
est fights ever. 

Most of the day we spent at* a little esta- 
minet across the way from our so-called billets. 
There was a pretty mademoiselle there who 
served the rotten French beer and vin blanc, 
and the Tommies tried their French on her. 
They might as well have talked Choctaw. I 
speak the language a little and tried to monopo- 
lize the lady, and did, which didn't increase 
my popularity any. 



42 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 

"I say, Yank," some one would call, "don't 
be a blinkin' 'og. Give somebody else a 
chawnce." 

Whereupon I would pursue my conquest all 
the more ardently. I was making a large hit, 
as I thought, when in came an officer. After 
that I was ignored, to the huge delight of the 
Tommies, who joshed me unmercifully. They 
discovered that my middle name was Derby, 
and they christened me "Darby the Yank." 
Darby I remained as long as I was with 
them. 

Some of the questions the men asked about 
the States were certainly funny. One chap 
asked what language we spoke over here. I 
thought he was spooring, but he actually meant 
it. He thought we spoke something like Ital- 
ian, he said. I couldn't resist the temptation, 
and filled him up with a line of ghost stories 
about wild Indians just outside Boston. I 
told him I left because of a raid in which the 
redskins scalped people on Boston Common. 
After that he used to pester the life out of me 
for Wild West yarns with the scenes laid in 
New England. 



A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 43 

One chap was amazed and, I think, a little 
incredulous because I didn't know a man named 
Fisk in Des Moines. 

We went back to the trenches again and were 
there five days. I was out one night on barbed 
wire work, which is dangerous at any time, 
and was especially so with Fritz in his condi- 
tion of jumpy nerves. You have to do most 
of the work lying on your back in the mud, 
and if you jingle the wire, Fritz traverses No 
Man's Land with his rapid-firers with a fair 
chance of bagging something. 

I also had one night on patrol, which later 
became my favorite game. I will tell more 
about it in another chapter. 

At the end of the five days the whole battal- 
ion was pulled out for rest. We marched a 
few miles to the rear and came to the village 
of Petite-Saens. This town had been fought 
through, but for some reason had suffered little. 
Few of the houses had been damaged, and we 
had real billets. 

My section, ten men besides myself, drew a 
big attic in a clean house. There was loads of 
room and the roof was tight and there were 



44 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 

no rats. It was oriental luxury after Bully- 
Grenay and the trenches, and for a wonder 
nobody had a word of "grousing" over "kip- 
ping" on the bare floor. 

The house was occupied by a very old peas- 
ant woman and a very little girl, three years 
old, and as pretty as a picture. The old woman 
looked ill and sad and very lonesome. One 
night as we sat in her kitchen drinking black 
coffee and cognac, I persuaded her to tell her 
story. It was, on the whole, rather a cruel 
thing to ask, I am afraid. It is only one of 
many such that I heard over there. France 
has, indeed, suffered. I set down here, as 
nearly as I can translate, what the old woman 
said : 

"Monsieur, I am very, very old now, al- 
most eighty, but I am a patriot and I love my 
France. I do not complain that I have lost 
everything in this war. I do not care now, for 
I am old and it is for my country ; but there 
is much sadness for me to remember, and it is 
with great bitterness that I think of the pig 
Allemand — beast that he is. 

"Two years ago I lived in this house, happy 



A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 45 

with my daughter and her husband and the 
little baby, and my husband, who worked in 
the mines. He was too old to fight, but when 
the great war came he tried to enlist, but they 
would not listen to him, and he returned to 
work, that the country should not be without 
coal. 

"The beau-fils (son-in-law), he enlisted and 
said good-by and went to the service. 

"By and by the Boche come and in a great 
battle not far from this very house the beau-fils 
is wounded very badly and is brought to the 
house by comrades to die. 

"The Boche come into the village, but 
the beau-fils is too weak to go. The Boche 
come into the house, seize my daughter, and 
there — they — oh, monsieur — the things one 
may not say — and we so helpless. 

"Her father tries to protect her, but he is 
knocked down. I try, but they hold my feet 
over the fire until the very flesh cooks. See 
for yourselves the burns on my feet still. 

"My husband dies from the blow he gets, 
for he is very old, over ninety. Just then mon 
beau-fils sees a revolver that hangs by the 



46 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 

side of the German officer, and putting all 
his strength together he leaps forward and 
grabs the revolver. And there he shoots the 
officer — and my poor little daughter — and 
then he says good-by and through the head 
sends a bullet. 

"The Germans did not touch me but once 
after that, and then they knocked me to the 
floor when they came after the pig officer. 
By and by come you English, and all is well 
for dear France once more; but I am very 
desolate now. I am alone but for the petite- 
fille (granddaughter), but I love the English, 
for they save my home and my dear country." 

I heard a good many stories of this kind off 
and on, but this particular one, I think, brought 
home, to me at least, the general beastliness of 
the Hun closer than ever before. We all loved 
our little kiddie very much, and when we saw 
the evidence of the terrible cruelties the poor 
old woman had suffered we saw red. Most 
of us cried a little. I think that that one story 
made each of us that heard it a mean, vicious 
fighter for the rest of our service. I know it 
did me. 



A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 47 

One of the first things a British soldier learns 
is to keep himself clean. He can't do it, and 
he's as filthy as a pig all the time he is in the 
trenches, but he tries. He is always shaving, 
even under fire, and show him running water 
and he goes to it like a duck. 

More than once I have shaved in a periscope 
mirror pegged into the side of a trench, with 
the bullets snapping overhead, and rubbed my 
face with wet tea leaves afterward to freshen 
up. 

Back in billets the very first thing that 
comes off is the big clean-up. Uniforms are 
brushed up, and equipment put in order. 
Then comes the bath, the most thorough pos- 
sible under the conditions. After that comes 
the "cootie carnival", better known as the 
"shirt hunt." The cootie is the soldier's 
worst enemy. He's worse than the Hun. You 
can't get rid of him wherever you are, in the 
trenches or in billets, and he sticks closer than 
a brother. The cootie is a good deal of an acro- 
bat. His policy of attack is to hang on to the 
shirt and to nibble at the occupant. Pull 
off the shirt and he comes with it. Hence the 



48 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 

shirt hunt. Tommy gets out in the open some- 
where so as not to shed his little companions 
indoors — there's always enough there any- 
how — and he peels. Then he systematically 
runs down each seam — the cootie's favorite 
hiding place — catches the game, and ends his 
career by cracking him between the thumb 
nails. 

For some obscure psychological reason, 
Tommy seems to like company on one of these 
hunts. Perhaps it is because misery loves com- 
pany, or it may be that he likes to compare notes 
on the catch. Anyhow, it is a common thing 
to see from a dozen to twenty soldiers with 
their shirts off, hunting cooties. 

"Hi sye, 'Arry," you'll hear some one sing 
out. "Look 'ere. Strike me bloomin' well 
pink but this one 'ere's got a black stripe along 
'is back." 

Or, "If this don't look like the one I showed 
ye 'fore we went into the blinkin' line. 'Ow'd 
'e git loose?" 

And then, as likely as not, a little farther 
away, behind the officers' quarters, you'll 
hear one say : 



A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 49 

"I say, old chap, it's deucedly peculiar I 
should have so many of the beastly things 
after putting on the Harrisons mothaw sent 
in the lawst parcel." 

The cootie isn't at all fastidious. He 
will bite the British aristocrat as soon as 
anybody else. He finds his way into all 
branches of the service, and I have even 
seen a dignified colonel wiggle his shoulders 
anxiously. 

Some of the cootie stories have become clas- 
sical, like this one which was told from the 
North Sea to the Swiss border. It might have 
happened at that. 

A soldier was going over the top when one 
of his cootie friends bit him on the calf. The 
soldier reached down and captured the biter. 
Just as he stooped, a shell whizzed over where 
his head would have been if he had not gone 
after the cootie. Holding the captive between 
thumb and finger, he said : 

"Old feller, I cawn't give yer the Victoria 
Cross — but I can put yer back." 

And he did. 

The worst thing about the cootie is that there 



50 A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS 

is no remedy for hirn. The shirt hunt is the 
only effective way for the soldier to get rid of 
his bosom friends. The various dopes and 
patent preparations guaranteed as "good for 
cooties" are just that. They give 'em an 
appetite. 



CHAPTER V 

Feeding the Tommies 

F^OOD is a burning issue in the lives of all 
of us. It is the main consideration with 
the soldier. His life is simplified to two prin- 
cipal motives, i.e., keeping alive himself and 
killing the other fellow. The question upper- 
most in his mind every time and all of the 
time, is, "When do we eat?" 

In the trenches the backbone of Tommy's diet 
is bully beef, " Maconochie's Ration ", cheese, 
bread or biscuit, jam, and tea. He may get 
some of this hot or he may eat it from the tin, 
all depending upon how badly Fritz is behaving. 

In billets the diet is more varied. Here he 
gets some fresh meat, lots of bacon, and the 
bully and the Maconochie's come along in the 
form of stew. Also there is fresh bread and 
some dried fruit and a certain amount of sweet 
stuff. 

It was this matter of grub that made my life 



52 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

a burden in the billets at Petite-Saens. I had 
been rather proud of being lance corporal. It 
was, to me, the first step along the road to being 
field marshal. I found, however, that a cor- 
poral is high enough to take responsibility and 
to get bawled out for anything that goes wrong. 
He's not high enough to command any consid- 
eration from those higher up, and he is so close 
to the men that they take out their grievances 
on him as a matter of course. He is neither 
fish, flesh, nor fowl, and his life is a burden. 

I had the job of issuing the rations of our 
platoon, and it nearly drove me mad. Every 
morning I would detail a couple of men from 
our platoon to be standing mess orderlies for 
the day. They would fetch the char and bacon 
from the field kitchen in the morning and clean 
up the " dixies " after breakfast. The " dixie ", by 
the way, is an iron box or pot, oblong in shape, 
capacity about four or ^ve gallons. It fits 
into the field kitchen and is used for roasts, 
stews, char, or anything else. The cover serves 
to cook bacon in. 

Field kitchens are drawn by horses and fol- 
low the battalion everywhere that it is safe to 



FEEDING THE TOMMIES 53 

go, and to some places where it isn't. Two men 
are detailed from each company to cook, and 
there is usually another man who gets the ser- 
geants' mess, besides the officers' cook, who 
does not as a rule use the field kitchen, but pre- 
pares the food in the house taken as the officers' 
mess. 

As far as possible, the company cooks are men 
who were cooks in civil life, but not always. 
We drew a plumber and a navvy (road builder) 
— and the grub tasted of both trades. The 
way our company worked the kitchen problem 
was to have stew for two platoons one day and 
roast dinner for the others, and then reverse 
the order next day, so that we didn't have 
stew all the time. There were not enough 
" dixies " for us all to have stew the same day. 

Every afternoon I would take my mess or- 
derlies and go to the quartermaster's stores and 
get our allowance and carry it back to the bil- 
lets in waterproof sheets. Then the stuff that 
was to be cooked in the kitchen went there, 
and the bread and that sort of material was 
issued direct to the men. That was where 
my trouble started. 



54 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

The powers that were had an uncanny knack 
of issuing an odd number of articles to go 
among an even number of men, and vice versa. 
There would be eleven loaves of bread to go 
to a platoon of fifty men divided into four sec- 
tions. Some of the sections would have ten 
men and some twelve or thirteen. 

The British Tommy is a scrapper when it 
comes to his rations. He reminds me of an 
English sparrow. He's always right in there 
wangling for his own. He will bully and brow- 
beat if he can, and he will coax and cajole if 
he can't. It would be "Hi sye, corporal. 
They's ten men in Number 2 section and four- 
teen in ourn. An' blimme if you hain't guv 
'em four loaves, same as ourn. Is it right, 
I arsks yer ? Is it ? " Or, 

"Lookee! Do yer call that a loaf o' bread? 
Looks like the A. S. C. (Army Service Corps) 
been using it fer a piller. Gimme another, 
will yer, corporal?" 

When it comes to splitting seven onions nine 
ways, I defy any one to keep peace in the 
family, and every doggoned Tommy would 
hold out for his onion whether he liked 'em or 



FEEDING THE TOMMIES 55 

not. Same way with a bottle of pickles to 
go among eleven men or a handful of raisins 
or apricots. Or jam or butter or anything, 
except bully beef or Maconochie. I never 
heard any one "argue the toss" on either of 
those commodities. 

Bully is high-grade corned beef in cans 
and is O. K. if you like it, but it does get 
tiresome. 

Maconochie ration is put up a pound to the 
can and bears a label which assures the con- 
sumer that it is a scientifically prepared, well- 
balanced ration. Maybe so. It is my personal 
opinion that the inventor brought to his task 
an imperfect knowledge of cookery and a per- 
verted imagination. Open a can of Macon- 
ochie and you find a gooey gob of grease, like 
rancid lard. Investigate and you find chunks 
of carrot and other unidentifiable material, 
and now and then a bit of mysterious meat. 
The first man who ate an oyster had courage, 
but the last man who ate Maconochie's 
unheated had more. Tommy regards it as 
a very inferior grade of garbage. The label 
notwithstanding, he's right. 



56 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

Many people have asked me what to send our 
soldiers in the line of food. I'd say stick to 
sweets. Cookies of any durable kind — I 
mean that will stand chance moisture — the 
sweeter the better, and if possible those con- 
taining raisins or dried fruit. Figs, dates, 
etc., are good. And, of course, chocolate. 
Personally, I never did have enough chocolate. 
Candy is acceptable, if it is of the sort to stand 
more or less rough usage which it may get 
before it reaches the soldier. Chewing gum is 
always received gladly. The army issue of 
sweets is limited pretty much to jam, which 
gets to taste all alike. 

It is pathetic to see some of the messes 
Tommy gets together to fill his craving for 
dessert. The favorite is a slum composed of 
biscuit, water, condensed milk, raisins, and 
chocolate. If some of you folks at home 
would get one look at that concoction, let 
alone tasting it, you would dash out and spend 
your last dollar for a package to send to some 
lad "over there.' ' 

After the excitement of dodging shells and 
bullets in the front trenches, life in billets seems 



FEEDING THE TOMMIES 57 

dull. Tommy has too much time to get into 
mischief. It was at Petite-Saens that I first 
saw the Divisional Folies. This was a vaude- 
ville show by ten men who had been actors 
in civil life, and who were detailed to amuse 
the soldiers. They charged a small admission 
fee and the profit went to the Red Cross. 

There ought to be more recreation for the 
soldiers of all armies. The Y. M. C. A. is to 
take care of that with our boys. 

By the way, we had a Y. M. C. A. hut at 
Petite-Saens, and I cannot say enough for this 
great work. No one who has not been there 
can know what a blessing it is to be able to go 
into a clean, warm, dry place and sit down to 
reading or games and to hear good music. Per- 
sonally I am a little bit sorry that the secretaries 
are to be in khaki. They weren't when I left. 
And it sure did seem good to see a man in civil- 
ian's clothes. You get after a while so you 
hate the sight of a uniform. 

Another thing about the Y. M. C. A. I could 
wish that they would have more women in the 
huts. Not frilly, frivolous society girls, but 
women from thirty-five to fifty. A soldier 



58 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

likes kisses as well as the next. And he takes 
them when he finds them. And he finds too 
many. But what he really wants, though, 
is the chance to sit down and tell his troubles 
to some nice, sympathetic woman who is old 
enough to be level-headed. 

Nearly every soldier reverts more or less to 
a boyish point of view. He hankers for some- 
body to mother him. I should be glad to see 
many women of that type in the Y. M. C. A. 
work. It «is one of the great needs of our army 
that the boys should be amused and kept clean 
mentally and morally. I don't believe there is 
any organization better qualified to do this 
than the Y. M. C. A. 

Most of our chaps spent their time "on their 
own" either in the Y. M. C. A. hut or in the 
estaminets while we were in Petite-Saens. Our 
stop there was hardly typical of the rest in 
billets. Usually "rest" means that you are 
set to mending roads or some such fatigue 
duty. At Petite-Saens, however, we had it 
"cushy." 

The routine was about like this : Up at 6 : 30, 
we fell in for three-quarters of an hour physical 



FEEDING THE TOMMIES 59 

drill or bayonet practice. Breakfast. Inspec- 
tion of ammo and gas masks. One hour drill. 
After that, "on our own", with nothing to do 
but smoke, read, and gamble. 

Tommy is a great smoker. He gets a fag 
issue from the government, if he is lucky, of 
two packets or twenty a week. This lasts 
him with care about two days. After that he 
goes smokeless unless he has friends at home to 
send him a supply. I had friends in London 
who sent me about five hundred fags a week, 
and I was consequently popular while they 
lasted. This took off some of the curse of 
being a lance corporal. 

Tommy has his favorite in "fags" like any- 
body else. He likes above all Wild Wood- 
bines. This cigarette is composed of glue, 
cheap paper, and a poor quality of hay. Next 
in his affection comes Goldflakes — pretty near 
as bad. 

People over here who have boys at the front 
mustn't forget the cigarette supply. Send them 
along early and often. There'll never be too 
many. Smoking is one of the soldier's few 
comforts. Two bits' worth of makin's a week 



60 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

will help one lad make life endurable. It's 
cheap at the price. Come through for the 
smoke fund whenever you get the chance. 

Cafe life among us at Petite-Saens was 
mostly drinking and gambling. That is not 
half as bad as it sounds. The drinking was 
mostly confined to the slushy French beer and 
vin blanc and citron. Whiskey and absinthe 
were barred. 

The gambling was on a small scale, neces- 
sarily, the British soldier not being at any time 
a bloated plutocrat. At the same time the 
games were continuous. "House" was the 
most popular. This is a game similar to the 
"lotto" we used to play as children. The 
backers distribute cards having fifteen num- 
bers, forming what they call a school. Then 
numbered cardboard squares are drawn from 
a bag, the numbers being called out. When a 
number comes out which appears on your card, 
you cover it with a bit of match. If you get 
all your numbers covered, you call out "house", 
winning the pot. If there are ten people 
in at a franc a head, the banker holds out two 
francs, and the winner gets eight. 



FEEDING THE TOMMIES 61 

It is really quite exciting, as you may get all 
but one number covered and be rooting for a 
certain number to come. Usually when you 
get as close as that and sweat over a number 
for ten minutes, somebody else gets his first. 
Corporal Wells described the game as one where 
the winner "'oilers 'ouse and the rest 'oilers 
'ell!" 

Some of the nicknames for the different 
numbers remind one of the slang of the crap 
shooter. For instance, "Kelly's eye" means 
one. "Clickety click" is sixty-six. "Top of 
the house" is ninety. Other games are "crown 
and anchor", which is a dice game, and "pon- 
toon", which is a card game similar to "twenty- 
one" or "seven and a half." Most of these are 
mildly discouraged by the authorities, "house" 
being the exception. But in any estaminet 
in a billet town you'll find one or all of them in 
progress all the time. The winner usually 
spends his winnings for beer, so the money 
all goes the same way, game or no game. 

When there are no games on, there is usually 
a sing-song going. We had a merry young 
nuisance in our platoon named Rolfe, who had 



62 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

a voice like a frog and who used to insist upon 
singing on all occasions. Rolfie would climb 
on the table in the estaminet and sing numer- 
ous unprintable verses of his own, entitled 
"Oh, What a Merry Plyce is Hengland." 
The only redeeming feature of this song was 
the chorus, which everybody would roar out 
and which went like this : 

Cheer, ye beggars, cheer ! 

Britannia rules the wave ! 

'Ard times, short times 

Never'll come agyne. 

Shoutm' out at th' top o' yer lungs : 

Damn the German army ! 

Oh, wot a lovely plyce is Hengland ! 

Our ten days en repos at Petite-Saens came 
to an end all too soon. 

On the last day we lined up for our official 
"bawth." 

Petite-Saens was a coal-mining town. The 
mines were still operated, but only at night — 
this to avoid shelling from the Boche long-dis- 
tance artillery, which are fully capable of send- 
ing shells and hitting the mark at eighteen 
miles. The water system of the town depended 
upon the pumping apparatus of the mines. 



FEEDING THE TOMMIES 63 

Every morning early, before the pressure was 
off, all hands would turn out for a general 
"sluicing" under the hydrants. We were as 
clean as could be and fairly free of "cooties" 
at the end of a week, but official red tape de- 
manded that we go through an authorized 
scouring. 

On the last day we lined up for this at dawn 
before an old warehouse which had been fitted 
with crude showers. We were turned in twenty 
in a batch and were given four minutes to soap 
ourselves all over and rinse off. I was in the 
last lot and had just lathered up good and 
plenty when the water went dead. If you 
want to reach the acme of stickiness, try this 
stunt. I felt like the inside of a mucilage bot- 
tle for a week. 

After the official purification we were given 
clean underwear. And then there was a howl. 
The fresh underthings had been boiled and 
sterilized, but the immortal cootie had come 
through unscathed and in all its vigor. Cor- 
poral Wells raised a pathetic wail : 

"Blimme eyes, mytie ! I got rnore'n two 
'undred now an' this supposed to be a bloom- 



64 FEEDING THE TOMMIES 

in' clean shirt ! Why, the blinkin' thing's as 
lousy as a cookoo now, an me just a-gittin' 
rid o' the bloomin' chats on me old un. Strike 
me pink if it hain't a bleedin' crime ! Some 
one ought to write to John Bull abaht it !" 

John Bull is the English paper of that name 
published by Horatio Bottomley, which makes 
a specialty of publishing complaints from sol- 
diers and generally criticising the conduct of 
army affairs. 

Well, we got through the bath and the next 
day were on our way. This time it was up the 
line to another sector. My one taste of trench 
action had made me keen for more excitement, 
and in spite of the comfortable time at Petite- 
Saens, I was glad to go. I was yet to know the 
real horrors and hardships of modern warfare. 
There were many days in those to come when 
I looked back upon Petite-Saens as a sort of 
heaven. 



CHAPTER VI 

Hiking to Vimy Ridge 

TAT'E left Petite-Saens about nine o'clock 
Friday night and commenced our march 
for what we were told would be a short hike. 
It was pretty warm and muggy. There was 
a thin, low-lying mist over everything, but 
clear enough above, and there was a kind of 
poor moonlight. There was a good deal of 
delay in getting away, and we had begun to 
sweat before we started, as we were equipped 
as usual with about eighty pounds' weight on 
the back and shoulders. That eighty pounds 
is theoretical weight. 

As a matter of practice the pack nearly 
always runs ten and even twenty pounds over 
the official equipment, as Tommy is a great 
little accumulator of junk. I had acquired 
the souvenir craze early in the game, and 
was toting excess baggage in the form of a 
Boche helmet, a mess of shell noses, and a 



66 HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 

smashed German automatic. All this ran to 
weight. 

I carried a lot of this kind of stuff all the 
time I was in the service, and was constantly 
thinning out my collection or adding to it. 

When you consider that a soldier has to 
carry everything he owns on his person, you'd 
say that he would want to fly light; but he 
doesn't. And that reminds me, before I forget 
it, I want to say something about sending boxes 
over there. 

It is the policy of the British, and, I sup- 
pose, will be of the Americans, to move the 
troops about a good deal. This is done so 
that no one unit will become too much at home 
in any one line of trenches and so get careless. 
This moving about involves a good deal of 
hiking. 

Now if some chap happens to get a twenty- 
pound box of good things just before he is 
shifted, he's going to be in an embarrassing 
position. He'll have to give it away or leave 
it. So — send the boxes two or three pounds 
at a time, and often. 

But to get back to Petite-Saens. We com- 



HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 67 

menced our hike as it is was getting dark. As 
we swung out along the once good but now 
badly furrowed French road, we could see the 
Very lights beginning to go up far off to the 
left, showing where the lines were. We could 
distinguish between our own star lights and 
the German by the intensity of the flare, theirs 
being much superior to ours, so much so that 
they send them up from the second-line 
trenches. 

The sound of the guns became more distant 
as we swung away to the south and louder 
again as the road twisted back toward the 
front. 

We began to sing the usual songs of the 
march and I noticed that the American rag- 
time was more popular among the boys than 
their own music. "Dixie" frequently figured 
in these songs. 

It is always a good deal easier to march 
when the men sing, as it helps to keep time and 
puts pep into a column and makes the packs 
seem lighter. The officers see to it that the 
mouth organs get tuned up the minute a hike 
begins. 



68 HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 

At the end of each hour we came to a halt 
for the regulation ten minutes' rest. Troops in 
heavy marching order move very slowly, even 
with the music — and the hours drag. The ten 
minutes' rest though goes like a flash. The 
men keep an eye on the watches and "wangle" 
for the last second. 

We passed through two ruined villages with 
the battered walls sticking up like broken teeth 
and the gray moonlight shining through empty 
holes that had been windows. The people 
were gone from these places, but a dog howled 
over yonder. Several times we passed bat- 
teries of French artillery, and jokes and laughter 
came out of the half darkness. 

Topping a little rise, the moon came out 
bright, and away ahead the silver ribbon of 
the Souchez gleamed for an instant; the bare 
poles that once had been Bouvigny Wood were 
behind us, and to the right, to the left, a pul- 
verized ruin where houses had stood. Blofeld 
told me this was what was left of the village 
of Abalaine, which had been demolished some 
time before when the French held the sector. 

At this point guides came out and met us 



HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 69 

to conduct us to the trenches. The order 
went down the line to fall in, single file, keep- 
ing touch, no smoking and no talking, and I 
supposed we were about to enter a communi- 
cation trench. But no. We swung on to a 
"duck walk." This is a slatted wooden walk 
built to prevent as much as possible sinking 
into the mud. The ground was very soft here. 

I never did know why there was no com- 
munication trench unless it was because the 
ground was so full of moisture. But whatever 
the reason, there was none, and we were right 
out in the open on the duck walk. The order 
for no talk seemed silly as we clattered along 
the boards, making a noise like a four-horse 
team on a covered bridge. 

I immediately wondered whether we were 
near enough for the Boches to hear. I wasn't 
in doubt long, for they began to send over the 
"Berthas" in flocks. The "Bertha" is an 
uncommonly ugly breed of nine-inch shell 
loaded with H. E. It comes sailing over with 
a querulous "squeeeeeee", and explodes with 
an ear-splitting crash and a burst of murky, 
dull-red flame. 



70 HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 

If it hits you fair, you disappear. At a 
little distance you are ripped to fragments, 
and a little farther off you get a case of shell- 
shock. Just at the edge of the destructive 
area the wind of the explosion whistles by your 
ears, and then sucks back more slowly. 

The Boches had the range of that duck walk, 
and we began to run. Every now and then 
they would drop one near the walk, and from 
four to ten casualties would go down. There 
was no stopping for the wounded. They lay 
where they fell. We kept on the run, sometimes 
on the duck walk, sometimes in the mud, for 
three miles. I had reached the limit of my 
endurance when we came to a halt and rested 
for a little while at the foot of a slight incline. 
This was the "Pimple", so called on account 
of its rounded crest. 

The Pimple forms a part of the well-known 
Vimy Ridge — is a semi-detached extension 
of it — and lies between it and the Souchez 
sector. After a rest here we got into the 
trenches skirting the Pimple and soon came 
out on the Quarries. This was a bowl-like 
depression formed by an old quarry. The 



HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 71 

place gave a natural protection and all around 
the edge were dug-outs which had been built 
by the French, running back into the hill, 
some of them more than a hundred feet. 

In the darkness we could see braziers glow- 
ing softly red at the mouth of each burrow. 
There was a cheerful, mouth-watering smell of 
cookery on the air, a garlicky smell, with now 
and then a whiff of spicy wood smoke. 

We were hungry and thirsty, as well as tired, 
and shed our packs at the dug-outs assigned us 
and went at the grub and the char offered us by 
the men we were relieving, the Northumberland 
Fusiliers. 

The dug-outs here in the Quarries were the 
worst I saw in France. They were reasonably 
dry and roomy, but they had no ventilation 
except the tunnel entrance, and going back 
so far the air inside became simply stifling in 
a very short time. 

I took one inhale of the interior atmosphere 
and decided right there that I would bivouac 
in the open. It was just getting down to 
"kip" when a sentry came up and said I would 
have to get inside. It seemed that Fritz had 



72 HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 

the range of the Quarries to an inch and was 
in the habit of sending over "minnies" at 
intervals just to let us know he wasn't asleep. 

I had got settled down comfortably and was 
dozing off when there came a call for C com- 
pany. I got the men from my platoon out as 
quickly as possible, and in half an hour we were 
in the trenches. 

Number 10 platoon was assigned to the cen- 
ter sector, Number 11 to the left sector, and 
Number 12 to the right sector. Number 9 
remained behind in supports in the Quarries. 

Now when I speak of these various sectors, 
I mean that at this point there was no contin- 
uous line of front trenches, only isolated 
stretches of trench separated by intervals of 
from two hundred to three hundred yards of 
open ground. There were no dug-outs. It was 
impossible to leave these trenches except under 
cover of darkness — or to get to them or to 
get up rations. They were awful holes. Any 
raid by the Germans in large numbers at this 
time would have wiped us out, as there was 
no means of retreating or getting up reinforce- 
ments. 



HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 73 

The Tommies called the trenches Grouse 
Spots. It was a good name. We got into 
them in the dense darkness of just before 
dawn. The division we relieved gave us 
hardly any instruction, but beat it on the hot 
foot, glad to get away and anxious to go be- 
fore sun-up. As we settled down in our cosey 
danger spots I heard Rolfie, the frog-voiced 
baritone, humming one of his favorite coster 
songs : 

Oh, why did I leave my little back room in old 

Bloomsbury ? 
Where I could live for a pound a week in luxury. 
I wanted to live higher 
So I married Marier, 
Out of the frying pan into the bloomin' fire. 

And he meant every word of it. 

In our new positions in the Grouse Spots 
the orders were to patrol the open ground be- 
tween at least four times a night. That first 
night there was one more patrol necessary 
before daylight. Tired as I was, I volunteered 
for it. I had had one patrol before, opposite 
Bully-Grenay, and thought I liked the game. 

I went over with one man, a fellow named 
Bellinger. We got out and started to crawl. 



74 HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 

All we knew was that the left sector was two 
hundred yards away. Machine-gun bullets 
were squealing and snapping overhead pretty 
continuously, and we had to hug the dirt. It 
is surprising to see how flat a man can keep 
and still get along at a good rate of speed. 
We kept straight away to the left and pres- 
ently got into wire. And then we heard Ger- 
man voices. Ow ! I went cold all over. 

Then some "Very" lights went up and I 
saw the Boche parapet not twenty feet away. 
Worst of all there was a little lane through 
their wire at that point, and there would be, 
no doubt, a sap head or a listening post near. 
I tried to lie still and burrow into the dirt 
at the same time. Nothing happened. Pres- 
ently the lights died, and Bellinger gave me 
a poke in the ribs. We started to crawfish. 
Why we weren't seen I don't know, but we 
had gone all of one hundred feet before they 
spotted us. Fortunately we were on the edge 
of a shallow shell hole when the sentry caught 
our movements and Fritz cut loose with the 
"typewriters." We rolled in. A perfect tor- 
rent of bullets ripped up the dirt and cascaded 



HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 75 

us with gravel and mud. The noise of the 
bullets "crackling" a yard above us was 
deafening. 

The fusillade stopped after a bit. I was all 
for getting out and away immediately. Bel- 
linger wanted to wait a while. We argued for 
as much as five minutes, I should think, and 
then the lights having gone out, I took matters 
in my own hands and we went away from there. 
Another piece of luck ! 

We weren't more than a minute on our way 
when a pair of bombs went off about over 
the shell hole. Evidently some bold Heinie 
had chucked them over to make sure of the 
job in case the machines hadn't. It was a 
close pinch — two close pinches. I was in 
places afterwards where there was more action 
and more danger, but, looking back, I don't 
think I was ever sicker or scareder. I would 
have been easy meat if they had rushed us. 

We made our way back slowly, and eventually 
caught the gleam of steel helmets. They were 
British. We had stumbled upon our left 
sector. We found out then that the line 
curved and that instead of the left sector 



76 HIKING TO VIMY RIDGE 

being directly to the left of ours — the center 
— it was to the left and to the rear. Also 
there was a telephone wire running from one 
to the other. We reported and made our 
way back to the center in about five minutes 
by feeling along the wire. That was our 
method afterwards, and the patrol was cushy 
for us. 



CHAPTER VII 

Fascination of Patrol Work 

T WANT to say a word right here about 
patrol work in general, because for some 
reason it fascinated me and was my favorite 
game. 

If you should be fortunate — or unfortunate 
enough, as the case might be — to be squat- 
ting in a front-line trench this fine morning 
and looking through a periscope, you wouldn't 
see much. Just over the top, not more than 
twenty feet away, would be your barbed- 
wire entanglements, a thick network of wire 
stretched on iron posts nearly waist high, and 
perhaps twelve or fifteen feet across. Then 
there would be an intervening stretch of 
from fifty to one hundred fifty yards of No 
Man's Land, a tortured, torn expanse of 
muddy soil, pitted with shell craters, and, 
over beyond, the German wire and his 
parapet. 



78 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

There would be nothing alive visible. There 
would probably be a few corpses lying about 
or hanging in the wire. Everything would be 
still except for the flutter of some rag of a 
dead man's uniform. Perhaps not that. Day- 
light movements in No Man's Land are some- 
how disconcerting. Once I was in a trench 
where a leg — a booted German leg, stuck 
up stark and stiff out of the mud not twenty 
yards in front. Some idiotic joker on patrol 
hung a helmet on the foot, and all the next 
day that helmet dangled and swung in the 
breeze. It irritated the periscope watchers, 
and the next night it was taken down. 

Ordinarily, however, there is little move- 
ment between the wires, nor behind them. 
And yet you know that over yonder there are 
thousands of men lurking in the trenches 
and shelters. 

After dark these men, or some of them, crawl 
out like hunted animals and prowl in the black 
mystery of No Man's Land. They are the 
patrol. 

The patrol goes out armed and equipped 
lightly. He has to move softly and at times 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 79 

very quickly. It is his duty to get as close 
to the enemy lines as possible and find out if 
they are repairing their wire or if any of their 
parties are out, and to get back word to the 
machine gunners, who immediately cut loose 
on the indicated spot. 

Sometimes he lies with his head to the 
ground over some suspected area, straining 
his ears for the faint "scrape, scrape" that 
means a German mining party is down there, 
getting ready to plant a ton or so of high 
explosive, or, it may be, is preparing to touch 
it off at that very moment. 

Always the patrol is supposed to avoid 
encounter with enemy patrols. He carries 
two or three Mills bombs and a pistol, but 
not for use except in extreme emergency. 
Also a persuader stick or a trench knife, 
which he may use if he is near enough to 
do it silently. 

The patrol stares constantly through the 
dark and gets so he can see almost as well as 
a cat. He must avoid being seen. When a 
Very light goes up, he lies still. If he happens 
to be standing, he stands still. Unless the 



80 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

light is behind him so that he is silhouetted, he 
is invisible to the enemy. 

Approaching a corpse, the patrol lies quiet 
and watches it for several minutes, unless it is 
one he has seen before and is acquainted with. 
Because sometimes the man isn't dead, but a 
perfectly live Boche patrol lying "doggo." 
You can't be too careful. 

If you happen to be pussyfooting forward 
erect and encounter a German patrol, it is 
policy to scuttle back unless you are near 
enough to get in one good lick with the per- 
suader. He will retreat slowly himself, and 
you mustn't follow him. Because : The Brit- 
ish patrol usually goes out singly or at the 
most in pairs or threes. 

The Germans, on the other hand, hunt in 
parties. One man leads. Two others fol- 
low to the rear, one to each side. And then 
two more, and two more, so that they form a 
V, like a flock of geese. Now if you follow 
up the lead man when he retreats, you are 
baited into a trap and find yourself surrounded, 
smothered by superior numbers, and taken 
prisoner. Then back to the Boche trench, 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 81 

where exceedingly unpleasant things are apt 
to happen. 

It is, in fact, most unwholesome for a British 
patrol to be captured. I recall a case in 
point which I witnessed and which is far 
enough in the past so that it can be told. It 
occurred, not at Vimy Ridge, but further down 
the line, nearer the Somme. 

I was out one night with another man, prowl- 
ing in the dark, when I encountered a Canadian 
sergeant who was alone. There was a Canadian 
battalion holding the next trench to us, and 
another farther down. He was from the far- 
ther one. We lay in the mud and compared 
notes. Once, when a light floated down near 
us, I saw his face, and he was a man I knew, 
though not by name. 

After a while we separated, and he went 
back, as he was considerably off his patrol. 
An hour or so later the mist began to get 
gray, and it was evident that dawn was near. 
I was a couple of hundred yards down from 
our battalion, and my man and I made for the 
trenches opposite where we were. As we 
climbed into a sap head, I was greeted by a 



82 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

Canadian corporal. He invited me to a tin 
of "char", and I sent my man up the line to 
our own position. 

We sat on the fire step drinking, and I told 
the corporal about meeting the sergeant out 
in front. While we were at the "char" it 
kept getting lighter, and presently a pair of 
Lewises started to rattle a hundred yards or 
so away down the line. Then came a sudden 
commotion and a kind of low, growling shout. 
That is the best way I can describe it. We 
stood up, and below we saw men going over 
the top. 

"What the dickens can this be?" stuttered 
the corporal. "There's been no barrage. 
There's no orders for a charge. What is it? 
What is it?" 

Well, there they were, going over, as many 
as two hundred of them — growling. The 
corporal and I climbed out of the trench at 
the rear, over the parados, and ran across lots 
down to a point opposite where the Canadians 
had gone over, and watched. 

They swept across No Man's Land and into 
the Boche trench. There was the deuce of 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 83 

a ruckus over there for maybe two minutes, 
and then back they came — carrying some- 
thing. Strangely enough there had been no 
machine-gun fire turned on them as they 
crossed, nor was there as they returned. 
They had cleaned that German trench ! And 
they brought back the body of a man — nailed 
to a rude crucifix. The thing was more like 
a T than a cross. It was made of planks, 
perhaps two by five, and the man was spiked 
on by his hands and feet. Across the abdo- 
men he was riddled with bullets and again 
with another row a little higher up near his 
chest. The man was the sergeant I had talked 
to earlier in the night. What had happened 
was this. He had, no doubt, been taken by 
a German patrol. Probably he had refused 
to answer questions. Perhaps he had insulted 
an officer. They had crucified him and held 
him up above the parapet. With the first 
light his owrT comrades had naturally opened 
on the thing with the Lewises, not knowing 
what it was. When it got lighter, and they 
recognized the hellish thing that had been 
done to one of their men, they went over. 



84 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

Nothing in this world could have stopped 
them. 

The M. O. who viewed the body said that 
without question the man had been crucified 
alive. Also it was said that the same thing 
had happened before. 

I told Captain Green of the occurrence 
when I got back to our own trenches, and he 
ordered me to keep silent, which I did. It 
was feared that if the affair got about the men 
would be "windy" on patrol. However, the 
thing did get about and was pretty well talked 
over. Too many saw it. 

The Canadians were reprimanded for going 
over without orders. But they were not 
punished. For their officers went with them 
— led them. 

Occasionally the temptation is too great. 
Once I was out on patrol alone, having sent 
my man back with a message, when I encoun- 
tered a Heinie. I was lying down at the time. 
A flock of lights went up and showed this 
fellow standing about ten feet from me. He 
had frozen and stayed that way till the flares 
died, but I was close enough to see that he 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 85 

was a German. Also — marvel of marvels 
— he was alone. 

When the darkness settled again, I got to 
my feet and jumped at him. He jumped at 
me — another marvel. Going into the clinch 
I missed him with the persuader and lost my 
grip on it, leaving the weapon dangling by the 
leather loop on my wrist. He had struck 
at me with his automatic, which I think he 
must have dropped, though I'm not sure of 
that. Anyway we fell into each other's arms 
and went at it barehanded. He was bigger 
than I. I got under the ribs and tried to 
squeeze the breath out of him, but he was too 
rugged. 

At the same time I felt that he didn't relish 
the clinch. I slipped my elbow up and got 
under his chin, forcing his head back. His 
breath smelled of beer and onions. I was 
choking him when he brought his knee up and 
got me in the stomach and again on the instep 
when he brought his heel down. 

It broke my hold, and I staggered back 
groping for the persuader. He jumped back 
as far as I did. I felt somehow that he was 



86 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

glad. So was I. We stood for a minute, and 
I heard him gutter out something that sounded 
like "Verdamder swinehunt." Then we both 
backed away. 

It seemed to me to be the nicest way out 
of the situation. No doubt he felt the same. 

I seem to have wandered far from the 
Quarries and the Grouse Spots. Let's go 
back. 

We were two days in the Grouse Spots and 
were then relieved, going back to the Quarries 
and taking the place of Number 9 in support. 
While lying there, I drew a patrol that was 
interesting because it was different. 

The Souchez River flowed down from Aba- 
laine and Souchez villages and through our lines 
to those of the Germans, and on to Lens. 
Spies, either in the army itself or in the vil- 
lages, had been placing messages in bottles 
and floating them down the river to the Ger- 
mans. 

Somebody found this out, and a net of chicken 
wire had been placed across the river in No 
Man's Land. Some one had to go down there 
and fish for bottles twice nightly. I took this 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 87 

patrol alone. The lines were rather far apart 
along the river, owing to the swampy nature 
of the ground, which made livable trenches 
impossible. 

I slipped out and down the slight incline, 
and presently found myself in a little valley. 
The grass was rank and high, sometimes nearly 
up to my chin, and the ground was slimy 
and treacherous. I slipped into several shell 
holes and was almost over my head in the 
stagnant, smelly water. 

I made the river all right, but there was no 
bridge or net in sight. The river was not over 
ten feet wide and there was supposed to be 
a footbridge of two planks where the net was. 

I got back into the grass and made my way 
downstream. Sliding gently through the grass, 
I kept catching my feet in something hard that 
felt like roots ; but there were no trees in the 
neighborhood. I reached down and groped 
in the grass and brought up a human rib. 
The place was full of them, and skulls. Stoop- 
ing, I could see them, grinning up out of the 
dusk, hundreds of them. I learned afterwards 
that this was called the Valley of Death. 



88 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

Early in the war several thousand Zouaves 
had perished there, and no attempt had been 
made to bury them. 

After getting out of the skeletons, I scouted 
along downstream and presently heard the 
low voices of Germans. Evidently they had 
found the net and planned to get the messages 
first. Creeping to the edge of the grass, I 
peeped out. I was opposite the bottle trap. 
I could dimly make out the forms of two men 
standing on the nearer end of the plank bridge. 
They were, I should judge, about ten yards 
away, and they hadn't heard me. I got out 
a Mills, pulled the pin, and pitched it. The 
bomb exploded, perhaps five feet this side of 
the men. One dropped, and the other ran. 

After a short wait I ran over to the Ger- 
man. I searched him for papers, found none, 
and rolled him into the river. 

After a few days in the Quarries we were 
moved to what was known as the Warren, so 
called because the works resembled a rabbit 
warren. This was on the lower side and to 
the left end of Vimy Ridge, and was extra 
dangerous. It did seem as though each place 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 89 

was worse than the last. The Warren was a 
regular network of trenches, burrows, and funk 
holes, and we needed them all. 

The position was downhill from the Huns, 
and they kept sending over and down a con- 
tinuous stream of "pip-squeaks", "whiz- 
bangs", and "minnies." The "pip-squeak" 
is a shell that starts with a silly "pip", goes 
on with a sillier "squeeeeee", and goes off 
with a man's-size bang. 

The "whiz-bang" starts with a rough whirr 
like a flushing cock partridge, and goes off on 
contact with a tremendous bang. It is not as 
dangerous as it sounds, but bad enough. 

The "minnie" is about the size of a two- 
gallon kerosene can, and comes somersaulting 
over in a high arc and is concentrated death 
and destruction when it lands. It has one 
virtue — you can see it coming and dodge, 
and at night it most considerately leaves a 
trail of sparks. 

The Roche served us full portions of all three 
of these man-killers in the Warren and kept 
us ducking in and out pretty much all the 
time, night and day. 



90 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

I was lucky enough after the first day to be 
put on sappers' duty. The Sappers, or Engi- 
neers, are the men whose duty it is to run 
mines under No Man's Land and plant huge 
quantities of explosives. There was a great 
amount of mining going on all the time at 
Vimy Ridge from both sides. 

Sometimes Fritz would run a sap out rea- 
sonably near the surface, and we would counter 
with one lower down. Then he'd go us one 
better and go still deeper. Some of the mines 
went down and under hundreds of feet. The 
result of all this was that on our side at least, 
the Sappers were under-manned and a good 
many infantry were drafted into that service. 

I had charge of a gang and had to fill sand- 
bags with the earth removed from the end of 
the sap and get it out and pile the bags on the 
parapets. We were well out toward the Ger- 
man lines and deep under the hill when we 
heard them digging below us. An engineer 
officer came in and listened for an hour and 
decided that they were getting in explosives 
and that it was up to us to beat them to it. 
Digging stopped at once and we began rushing 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 91 

in H. E. in fifty-pound boxes. I was ordered 
back into supports with my section. 

Right here I began to have luck. Just see 
how this worked out. First a rushing party 
was organized whose duty it was to rush the 
crater made by the mine explosion and occupy 
it before the Germans got there. Sixty men 
were selected, a few from each company, and 
placed where they were supposedly safe, but 
where they could get up fast. This is the most 
dangerous duty an infantryman has to do, 
because both sides after a mine explosion 
shower in fifty-seven varieties of sudden death, 
including a perfect rain of machine-gun bul- 
lets. The chances of coming out of a rushing 
party with a whole hide are about one in five. 

Well, for a wonder, I didn't get drawn for 
this one, and I breathed one long, deep sigh 
of relief, put my hand inside my tunic and 
patted Dinky on the back. Dinky is my 
mascot. I'll tell you about him later. 

On top of that another bit of luck came 
along, though it didn't seem like it at the 
moment. It was the custom for a ration 
party to go out each night and get up the 



92 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

grub. This party had to go over the duck 
walk and was under fire both going and com- 
ing. One of the corporals who had been out 
on rations two nights in succession began to 
"grouse." 

Of course Sergeant Page spotted me and 
detailed me to the "wangler's" duty. I 
"groused" too, like a good fellow, but had to 
go. 

"Garn," says Wellsie. "Wot's the diff if 
yer gets it 'ere or there. If ye clicks, I'll draw 
yer fags from Blighty and say a prayer for yer 
soul. On yer way." 

Cheerful beggar, Wellsie. He was doing me 
a favor and didn't know it. 

I did the three miles along the duck walk 
with the ration party, and there wasn't a shell 
came our way. Queer ! Nor on the way 
back. Queerer ! When we were nearly back 
and were about five hundred yards from the 
base of the Pimple, a dead silence fell on the 
German side of the line. There wasn't a gun 
nor a mortar nor even a rifle in action for a 
mile in either direction. There was, too, a 
kind of sympathetic let-up on our side. There 



FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 93 

weren't any lights going up. There was an 
electric tension in the very air. You could 
tell by the feel that something big was going 
to happen. 

I halted the ration party at the end of the 
duck walk and waited. But not for long. 
Suddenly the "Very" lights went up from the 
German side, literally in hundreds, illuminat- 
ing the top of the ridge and the sky behind 
with a thin greenish white flare. Then came 
a deep rumble that shook the ground, and 
a dull boom. A spurt of blood-red flame 
squirted up from the near side of the hill, and 
a rolling column of gray smoke. 

Then another rumble, and another, and then 
the whole side of the ridge seemed to open up 
and move slowly skyward with a world-wreck- 
ing, soul-paralyzing crash. A murky red glare 
lit up the smoke screen, and against it a 
mass of tossed-up debris, and for an instant 
I caught the black silhouette of a whole human 
body spread-eagled and spinning like a pin- 
wheel. 

Most of our party, even at the distance, 
were knocked down by the gigantic impact of 



94 FASCINATION OF PATROL WORK 

the explosion. A shower of earth and rock 
chunks, some as big as a barrel, fell around us. 

Then we heard a far-away cheering, and in 
the light of the flares we saw a newly made 
hill and our men swarming up it to the crater. 
Two mines had exploded, and the whole side 
of the Pimple had been torn away. Half of 
our rushing party were killed and we had sixty 
casualties from shock and wounds among men 
who were supposed to be at a safe distance 
from the mining operation. But we took and 
held the new crater positions. 

The corporal whose place I had taken on 
the ration party was killed by falling stones. 
Inasmuch as he was where I would have been, 
I considered that I had had a narrow escape 
from "going west!" More luck! 



CHAPTER VIII 
On the Go 

Marching, marching, marching, 
Always ruddy well marching. 
Marching all the morning, 
And marching all the night. 
Marching, marching, marching, 
Always ruddy well marching, 
Roll on till my time is up 
And I shall march no more. 

'lAT'E sung it to the tune of "Holy, Holy, 
Holy ", the whole blooming battalion. As 
we swung down the Boulevard Alsace-Lorraine 
in Amiens and passed the great cathedral up 
there to the left, on its little rise of ground, 
the chant lifted and lilted and throbbed up 
from near a thousand throats, much as the 
unisoned devotions of the olden monks must 
have done in other days. 

Ours was a holy cause, but despite the 
association of the tune the song was far from 
being a holy song. It was, rather, a chanted 



96 ON THE GO 

remonstrance against all hiking and against 
this one in particular. 

After our service at Vimy Ridge some one 
in authority somewhere decided that the 22nd 
Battalion and two others were not quite good 
enough for really smart work. We were, in- 
deed, hard. But not hard enough. So some 
superior intellect squatting somewhere in the 
safety of the rear, with a finger on the pulse 
of the army, decreed that we were to get 
not only hard but tough ; and to that end we 
were to hike. Hike we did. 

For more than three weeks we went from 
place to place with no apparent destination, 
wandering aimlessly up and down the country- 
side of Northern France, imposing ourselves 
upon the people of little villages, shamming 
battle over their cultivated fields, and sleep- 
ing in their hen coops. 

I kept a diary on that hike. It was a thing 
forbidden, but I managed it. One manages 
many things out there. I have just read over 
that diary. There isn't much to it but a 
succession of town names, — Villiers du Bois, 
Maisincourt, Barly, Oneaux, Canchy, Amiens, 



ON THE GO 97 

Bourdon, Villiers Bocage, Agenvilliers, Behen- 
court, and others that I failed to set down 
and have forgotten. We swept across that 
country, sweating under our packs, harden- 
ing our muscles, stopping here for a day, 
there for five days for extended-order drills 
and bayonet and musketry practice, and 
somewhere else for a sham battle. We were 
getting ready to go into the Somme. 

The weather, by some perversity of fate, 
was fair during all of that hiking time. When- 
ever I was in the trenches it always rained, 
whether the season warranted it or not. Ex- 
cept on days when we were scheduled to go 
over the top. Then, probably because rain 
will sometimes hold up a planned-for attack, 
it was always fair. 

On the hike, with good roads under foot, 
the soldier does not mind a little wet and 
welcomes a lot of clouds. No such luck for 
us. It was clear all the time. Not only 
clear but blazing hot August weather. 

On our first march out of the Cabaret Rouge 
communication trench we covered a matter of 
ten miles to a place called Villiers du Bois. 



98 ON THE GO 

Before that I had never fully realized just 
what it meant to go it in full heavy equipment. 

Often on the march I compared my lot 
with that of the medieval soldier who had 
done his fighting over these same fields of 
Northern France. 

The knight of the Middle Ages was all 
dressed up like a hardware store with, I should 
judge, about a hundred pounds of armor. But 
he rode a horse and had a squire or some such 
striker trailing along in the rear with the 
things to make him comfortable, when the 
fighting was over. 

The modern soldier gets very little help in 
his war making. He is, in fact, more likely 
to be helping somebody else than asking for 
assistance for himself. The soldier has two 
basic functions : first, to keep himself whole 
and healthy ; second, to kill the other fellow. 
To the end that he may do these two perfectly 
simple things, he has to carry about eighty 
pounds of weight all the time. 

He has a blanket, a waterproof sheet, a 
greatcoat, extra boots, extra underwear, a 
haversack with iron rations, entrenching tools, 



ON THE GO 99 

a bayonet, a water bottle, a mess kit, a rifle, 
two hundred fifty rounds of ammo, a tin hat, 
two gas helmets, and a lot of miscellaneous 
small junk. All this is draped, hung, and 
otherwise disposed over his figure by means 
of a web harness having more hooks than a 
hatrack. He parallels the old-time knight 
only in the matter of the steel helmet and 
the rifle, which, with the bayonet, correspond 
to the lance, sword, and battle-ax, three in 
one. 

The modern soldier carries all his worldly 
goods with him all the time. He hates to 
hike. But he has to. 

I remember very vividly that first day. 
The temperature was around 90°, and some 
fool officers had arranged that we start at 
one, — the very worst time of the day. The 
roads so near the front were pulverized, and 
the dust rose in dense clouds. The long 
straight lines of poplars beside the road were 
gray with it, and the heat waves shimmered 
up from the fields. 

Before we had gone five miles the men 
began to wilt. Right away I had some more 



100 ON THE GO 

of the joys of being a corporal brought home 
to me. I was already touched with trench 
fever and was away under par. That didn't 
make any difference. 

On the march, when the men begin to weaken, 
an officer is sure to trot up and say : 

"Corporal Holmes, just carry this man's 
rifle," or "Corporal Collins, take that man's 
pack. He's jolly well done." 

Seemingly the corporal never is supposed 
to be jolly well done. If one complained, 
his officer would look at him with astounded 
reproach and say : 

"Why, Corporal. We cawn't have this, 
you know ! You are a Non-commissioned 
Officer, and you must set an example. You 
must, rahly." 

When we finally hit the town where our 
billets were, we found our company quartered 
in an old barn. It was dirty, and there was 
a pigpen at one end, — very smelly in the 
August heat. We flopped in the ancient 
filth. The cooties were very active, as we 
were drenched with sweat and hadn't had a 
bath since heavens knew when. We had had 



ON THE GO 101 

about ten minutes' rest and were thinking 
about getting out of the harness when up 
came Mad Harry, one of our "lef tenants", and 
ordered us out for foot inspection. 

I don't want to say anything unfair about 
this man. He is dead now. I saw him die. 
He was brave. He knew his job all right, 
but he was a fine example of what an officer 
ought not to be. The only reason I speak of 
him is because I want to say something about 
officers in general. 

This Mad Harry, — I do not give his sur- 
name for obvious reasons, — was the son of 
one of the richest-new-rich-merchant families 
in England. He was very highly educated, 
had, I take it, spent the most of his life with 
the classics. He was long and thin and sallow 
and fish-eyed. He spoke in a low colorless 
monotone, absolutely without any inflection 
whatever. The men thought he was balmy. 
Hence the nickname Mad Harry. 

Mad Harry was a fiend for walking. And 
at the end of a twenty-mile hike in heavy 
marching order he would casually stroll along- 
side some sweating soldier and drone out, 



102 ON THE GO 

"I say, Private Stetson. Don't you just 
love to hike?" 

Then and there he made a lifelong personal 
enemy of Private Stetson. In the same or 
similar ways he made personal enemies of 
every private soldier he came in contact 
with. 

It may do no harm to tell how Mad Harry 
died. He came very near being shot by one 
of his own men. 

It was on the Somme. We were in the 
middle of a bit of a show, and we were all 
hands down in shell holes with a heavy ma- 
chine-gun fire crackling overhead. I was in 
one hole, and in the next, which merged 
with mine, were two chaps who were cousins. 

Mad Harry came along, walking perfectly 
upright, regardless of danger, with his left 
arm shattered. He dropped into the next 
shell hole and with his expressionless drawl 
unshaken, said, "Private X. Dress my arm." 

Private X got out his own emergency band- 
age and fixed the arm. When it was done 
Mad Harry, still speaking in his monotonous 
drone, said : 



ON THE GO 103 

"Now, Private X, get up out of this hole. 
Don't be hiding." 

Private X obeyed orders without a question. 
He climbed out and fell with a bullet through 
his head. His cousin, who was a very dear 
friend of the boy, evidently went more or less 
crazy at this. I saw him leap at Mad Harry 
and snatch his pistol from the holster. He 
was, I think, about to shoot his officer when 
a shell burst overhead and killed them both. 

Well, on this first day of the hike Mad Harry 
ordered us out for foot inspection, as I have 
said. I found that I simply couldn't get them 
out. They were in no condition for foot in- 
spection, — hadn't washed for days. Harry 
came round and gave me a royal dressing 
down and ordered the whole bunch out for 
parade and helmet inspection. We were kept 
standing for an hour. You couldn't blame the 
men for hating an officer of that kind. 

It is only fair to say that Mad Harry was 
not a usual type of British officer. He simply 
carried to excess the idea of discipline and 
unquestioning obedience. The principle of dis- 
cipline is the guts and backbone of any army. 



104 ON THE GO 

I am inclined to think that it is more than 
half the making of any soldier. There has 
been a good deal of talk in the press about 
a democratic army. As a matter of fact 
fraternization between men and officers is 
impossible except in nations of exceptional 
temperament and imagination, like the French. 
The French are unique in everything. It 
follows that their army can do things that 
no other army can. It is common to see a 
French officer sitting in a cafe drinking with 
a private. 

In the British army that could not be. 
The new British army is more democratic, 
no doubt, than the old. But except in the 
heat of battle, no British officer can relax 
his dignity very much. With the exception 
of Mr. Blofeld, who was one of those rare 
characters who can be personally close and 
sympathetic and at the same time command 
respect and implicit obedience, I never knew 
a successful officer who did not seem to be 
almost of another world. 

Our Colonel was a fine man, but he was as 
dignified as a Supreme Court Judge. In- 



ON THE GO 105 

cidentally he was as just. I have watched 
Colonel Flowers many times when he was 
holding orders. This is a kind of court when 
all men who have committed crimes and have 
been passed on by the captains appear before 
the Colonel. 

Colonel Flowers would sit smiling behind 
his hand, and would try his hardest to find 
"mitigating circumstances"; but when none 
could be dug out he passed sentence with the 
last limit of severity, and the man that was 
up for orders didn't come again if he knew 
what was good for himself. 

I think that on the hike we all got to know 
our officers better than we had known them 
in the trenches. Their real characters came 
out. You knew how far you could go with 
them, and what was more important, how 
far you couldn't go. 

It was at Dieval that my rank as lance 
corporal was confirmed. It is customary, 
when a rookie has been made a non-com in 
training, to reduce him immediately when he 
gets to France. I had joined in the trenches 
and had volunteered for a raiding party and 



106 ON THE GO 

there had been no opportunity to reduce 
me. I had not, however, had a corporal's pay. 
My confirmation came at Dieval, and I was 
put on pay. I would have willingly sacrificed 
the pay and the so-called honor to have been 
a private. 

Our routine throughout the hike was always 
about the same, that is in the intervals when 
we were in any one place for a day or more. 
It was, up at six, breakfast of tea, bread, 
and bacon. Drill till noon; dinner; drill 
till five. After that nothing to do till to- 
morrow, unless we got night 'ops, which was 
about two nights out of three. 

There were few Y. M. C. A. huts so far behind 
the lines, and the short time up to nine was 
usually spent in the estaminets. The games 
of house were in full blast all the time. 

On the hike we were paid weekly. Privates 
got five francs, corporals ten, and sergeants 
fifteen to twenty a week. That's a lot of 
money. Anything left over was held back 
to be paid when we got to Blighty. Parcels 
and mail came along with perfect regularity 
on that hike. It was and is a marvel to me 



ON THE GO 107 

how they do it. A battalion chasing around 
all over the place gets its stuff from Blighty 
day after day, right on the tick and without 
any question. I only hope that whatever 
the system is, our army will take advantage 
of it. A shortage of letters and luxury parcels 
is a real hardship. 

We finally brought up at a place called 
Oneux (pronounced Oh, no) and were there 
five days. I fell into luck here. It was cus- 
tomary, when we were marching on some 
unsuspecting village, to send the quartermaster 
sergeants ahead on bicycles to locate billets. 
We had an old granny named Cypress, better 
known as Lizzie. The other sergeants were 
accustomed to flim-flam Lizzie to a finish on 
the selection of billets, with the result that 
C company usually slept in pigpens or stables. 

The day we approached Oneux, Lizzie was 
sick, and I was delegated to his job. I went 
into the town with the three other quarter- 
master sergeants, got them into an estaminet, 
bought about a dollar's worth of drinks, 
sneaked out the back door, and preempted 
the schoolhouse for C company. I also took 



108 ON THE GO 

the house next door, which was big and clean, 
for the officers. We were royally comfortable 
there, and the other companies used the 
stables that usually fell to our lot. 

As a reward, I suspect, I was picked for 
Orderly Corporal, a cushy job. We all of 
us had it fairly easy at Oneux. It was hot 
weather, and nights we used to sit out in the 
schoolhouse yard and talk about the war. 

Some of the opinions voiced out there with 
more frankness than any one would dare to 
use at home would, I am sure, shock some of 
the patriots. The fact is that any one who 
has fought in France wants peace, and the 
sooner the better. 

We had one old-timer, out since Mons, who 
habitually, night after night, day after day, 
would pipe up with the same old plaint. Some- 
thing like this : 

"Hi arsks yer. Wot are we fightm' for? 
Wot'd th' Belgiums hever do fer us? Wot? 
Wot'd th' Rooshians hever do fer us? Wot's 
th' good of th' Frenchies? Wot's th' good 
of hanybody but th' Henglish ? Gawd lumme ! 
I'm fed up." 



ON THE GO 109 

And yet this man had gone out at the 
beginning and would fight like the very 
devil, and I verily believe will be homesick 
for the trenches if he is alive when it is all 
over. 

Bones, who was educated and a thoughtful 
reader, had it figured out that the war was 
all due to the tyranny of the ruling classes, 
with the Kaiser the chief offender. 

A lot of the men wanted peace at any 
reasonable price. Anything, so they would 
get back to 'Arriet or Sadie or Maria. 

I should say offhand that there was not one 
man in a hundred who was fighting consciously 
for any great recognized principle. And yet, 
with all their grousing and criticism, and all 
their overwhelming desire to have it over 
with, every one of them was loyal and brave 
and a hard fighter. 

A good deal has been written about the 
brilliancy of the Canadians and the other 
Colonials. Too much credit cannot be given 
these men. In an attack there are no troops 
with more dash than the Canadians, but when 
it comes to taking punishment and hanging 



110 ON THE GO 

on a hopeless situation, there are no troops 
in the wide world who can equal, much less 
surpass, the English. Personally I think that 
comparisons should be avoided. All the Allies 
are doing their full duty with all that is in them. 

During most of the war talk, it was my habit 
to keep discreetly quiet. We were not in the 
war yet, and any remarks from me usually 
drew some hot shot about Mr. Wilson's "blank- 
ety -blinked bloomin' notes." 

There was another American, a chap named 
Sanford from Virginia, in B company, and he 
and I used to furnish a large amount of enter- 
tainment in these war talks. Sanford was a 
F. F. V. and didn't care who knew it. Also he 
thought General Lee was the greatest military 
genius ever known. One night he and I got 
started and had it hot and heavy as to the 
merits of the Civil War. This for some reason 
tickled the Tommies half to death, and after 
that they would egg us on to a discussion. 

One of them would slyly say, "Darby, 'oo th' 
blinkin' 'ell was this blighter, General Grant?" 

Or, "Hi sye, Sandy, Hi 'eard Darby syin' 
'ow this General Lee was a bleedin' swab." 



ON THE GO 111 

Then Sanford and I would pass the wink 
and go at it tooth and nail. It was ridiculous, 
arguing the toss on a long-gone-by small-time 
scrap like the Civil War with the greatest 
show in history going on all around us. Any- 
way the Tommies loved it and would fairly 
howl with delight when we got to going 
good. 

It is strange, but with so many Americans 
in the British service, I ran up against very 
few. I remember one night when we were 
making a night march from one village to 
another, we stopped for the customary ten- 
minutes-in-the-hour rest. Over yonder in a 
field there was a camp of some kind, — prob- 
ably field artillery. There was dim light of 
a fire and the low murmur of voices. And 
then a fellow began to sing in a nice tenor : 

Bury me not on the lone prairie 
Where the wild coyotes howl o'er me. 
Bury me down in the little churchyard 
In a grave just six by three. 

The last time I had heard that song was in 
New Orleans, and it was sung by a wild Texan. 
So I yelled, "Hello there, Texas." 



112 ON THE GO 

He answered, "Hello, Yank. Where from?" 

I answered, "Boston." 

"Give my regards to Tremont Street and 
go to hell," says he. A gale of laughter came 
out of the night. Just then we had the order 
to fall in, and away we went. I'd like to 
know sometime who that chap was. 

After knocking about all over the north of 
France seemingly, we brought up at Canchy 
of a Sunday afternoon. Here the whole bri- 
gade, four battalions, had church parade, 
and after that the band played ragtime and 
the officers had a gabfest and compared medals, 
on top of which we were soaked with two 
hours' steady drill. We were at Canchy ten 
days, and they gave it to us good and plenty. 
We would drill all day and after dark it would 
be night 'ops. Finally so many men were 
going to the doctor worn out that he ordered 
a whole day and a half of rest. 

Mr. Blofeld on Saturday night suggested 
that, as we were going into the Somme within 
a few weeks, the non-coms ought to have a 
little blow-out. It would be the last time we 
would all ever be together. He furnished us 



ON THE GO 113 

with all the drinkables we could get away with, 
including some very choice Johnny Walker. 
There was a lot of canned stuff, mostly sar- 
dines. Mr. Blofeld loaned us the officers' 
phonograph. 

It was a large, wet night. Everybody made 
a speech or sang a song, and we didn't go home 
until morning. It was a farewell party, and 
we went the limit. If there is one thing that 
the Britisher does better than another, it is 
getting ready to die. He does it with a smile, 
— and he dies with a laugh. 

Poor chaps ! Nearly all of them are pushing 
up the daisies somewhere in France. Those 
who are not are, with one or two exceptions, 
out of the army with broken bodies. 



CHAPTER IX 

First Sight of the Tanks 

T ATE in the summer I accumulated a 
^^^ nice little case of trench fever. 

This disease is due to remaining for long 
periods in the wet and mud, to racked nerves, 
and, I am inclined to think, to sleeping in the 
foul air of the dug-outs. The chief symptom 
is high temperature, and the patient aches a 
good deal. I was sent back to a place in 
the neighborhood of Arras and was there a 
week recuperating. 

While I was there a woman spy whom I had 
known in Abalaine was brought to the village 
and shot. The frequency with which the 
duck walk at Abalaine had been shelled, es- 
pecially when ration parties or troops were going 
over it, had attracted a good deal of attention. 

There was a single house not far from the 
end of that duck walk west of Abalaine, oc- 
cupied by a woman and two or three children. 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 115 

She had lived there for years and was, so far 
as anybody knew, a Frenchwoman in breeding 
and sympathies. She was in the habit of 
selling coffee to the soldiers, and, of course, 
gossiped with them and thus gained a good 
deal of information about troop movements. 

She was not suspected for a long time. Then 
a gunner of a battery which was stationed 
near by noticed that certain children's garments, 
a red shirt and a blue one and several white 
garments, were on the clothesline in certain 
arrangement on the days when troops were 
to be moved along the duck walk the following 
night. This soldier notified his officers, and 
evidence was accumulated that the woman 
was signalling to the Boche airplanes. 

She was arrested, taken to the rear, and 
shot. I don't like to think that this woman 
was really French. She was, no doubt, one 
of the myriad of spies who were planted 
in France by the Germans long before the 
war. 

After getting over the fever, I rejoined my 
battalion in the early part of September in 
the Somme district at a place called Mill 



116 FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 

Street. This was in reality a series of dug- 
outs along a road some little distance behind 
our second lines, but in the range of the Ger- 
man guns, which persistently tried for our 
artillery just beside us. 

Within an hour of my arrival I was treated 
to a taste of one of the forms of German kul- 
tur which was new at the time. At least it 
was new to me — tear gas. This delectable 
vapor came over in shells, comparatively 
harmless in themselves, but which loosed a 
gas, smelling at first a little like pineapple. 
When you got a good inhale you choked, and 
the eyes began to run. There was no con- 
trolling the tears, and the victim would fairly 
drip for a long time, leaving him wholly in- 
capacitated. 

Goggles provided for this gas were nearly 
useless, and we all resorted to the regular gas 
helmet. In this way we were able to stand 
the stuff. 

The gas mask, by the way, was the bane 
of my existence in the trenches — one of the 
banes. I found that almost invariably after 
I had had mine on for a few minutes I got 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 117 

faint. Very often I would keel over entirely. 
A good many of the men were affected the 
same way, either from the laek of air inside 
the mask or by the influence of the chemicals 
with which the protector is impregnated. 

One of the closest calls I had in all my war 
experience was at Mills Street. And Fritz 
was not to blame. 

Several of the men, including myself, were 
squatted around a brazier cooking char and 
getting warm, for the nights were cold, when 
there was a terrific explosion. Investigation 
proved that an unexploded bomb had been 
buried under the brazier, and that it had gone 
off as the heat penetrated the ground. It is 
a wonder there weren't more of these accidents, 
as Tommy was forever throwing away his 
Millses. 

The Mills bomb fires by pulling out a pin 
which releases a lever which explodes the 
bomb after four seconds. Lots of men never 
really trust a bomb. If you have one in your 
pocket, you feel that the pin may somehow 
get out, and if it does you know that you'll 
go to glory in small bits. I always had that 



118 FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 

feeling myself and used to throw away my 
Millses and scoop a hatful of dirt over them 
with my foot. 

This particular bomb killed one man, 
wounded several, and shocked all of us. Two 
of the men managed to "swing" a "blighty" 
case out of it. I could have done the same if 
I had been wise enough. 

I think I ought to say a word right here 
about the psychology of the Tommy in swing- 
ing a "blighty" case. 

It is the one first, last, and always ambition 
of the Tommy to get back to Blighty. Usually 
he isn't "out there" because he wants to be 
but because he has to be. He is a patriot all 
right. His love of Blighty shows that. He 
will fight like a bag of wildcats when he gets 
where the fighting is, but he isn't going around 
looking for trouble. He knows that his officers 
will find that for him a-plenty. 

When he gets letters from home and knows 
that the wife or the "nippers" or the old 
mother is sick, he wants to go home. And so 
he puts in his time hoping for a wound that 
will be "cushy" enough not to discommode 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 119 

him much and that will be bad enough to 
swing Blighty on. Sometimes when he wants 
very much to get back he stretches his con- 
science to the limit — and it is pretty elastic 
anyhow — and he fakes all sorts of illness. 
The M. O. is usually a bit too clever for Tommy, 
however, and out and out fakes seldom get by. 
Sometimes they do, and in the most unexpected 
cases. 

I had a man named Isadore Epstein in my 
section who was instrumental in getting Blighty 
for himself and one other. Issy was a tailor 
by trade. He was no fighting man and didn't 
pretend to be, and he didn't care who knew it. 
He was wild to get a "blighty one" or shell 
shock, or anything that would take him home. 

One morning as we were preparing to go 
over the top, and the men were a little jumpy 
and nervous, I heard a shot behind me, and a 
bullet chugged into the sandbags beside my 
head. I whirled around, my first thought 
being that some one of our own men was 
trying to do me in. This is a thing that some- 
times happens to unpopular officers and less 
frequently to the men. But not in this case. 



120 FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 

It was Issy Epstein. He had been monkey- 
ing with his rifle and had shot himself in the 
hand. Of course, Issy was at once under 
suspicion of a self-inflicted wound, which is 
one of the worst crimes in the calendar. But 
the suspicion was removed instantly. Issy 
was hopping around, raising a terrific row. 

"Oi, oi," he wailed. "I'm ruint. I'm ruint. 
My thimble finger is gone. My thimble 
finger ! I'm ruint. Oi, oi, oi, oi." 

The poor fellow was so sincerely desolated 
over the loss of his necessary finger that I 
couldn't accuse him of shooting himself in- 
tentionally. I detailed a man named Bealer 
to take Issy back to a dressing station. Well, 
Bealer never came back. 

Months later in England I met up with Ep- 
stein and asked about Bealer. It seems that 
after Issy had been fixed up, the surgeon turned 
to Bealer and said : 

"What's the matter with you?" 

Bealer happened to be dreaming of some- 
thing else and didn't answer. 

"I say," barked the doctor, "speak up. 
What's wrong?" 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 121 

Bealer was startled and jumped and begun 
to stutter. 

"Oh, I see," said the surgeon. "Shell 
shock." 

Bealer was bright enough and quick enough 
after that to play it up and was tagged for 
Blighty. He had it thrust upon him. And 
you can bet he grabbed it and thanked his 
lucky stars. 

We had been on Mill Street a day and a 
night when an order came for our company 
to move up to the second line and to be ready 
to go over the top the next day. At first 
there was the usual grousing, as there seemed 
to be no reason why our company should be 
picked from the whole battalion. We soon 
learned that all hands were going over, and 
after that we felt better. 

We got our equipment on and started up to 
the second line. It was right here that I got 
my first dose of real honest-to-goodness modern 
war. The big push had been on all summer, 
and the whole of the Somme district was 
battered and smashed. 

Going up from Mill Street there were no 



IM FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 

communication trenches. We were right out 
in the open, exposed to rifle and machine-gun 
fire and to shrapnel, and the Bodies were 
fairly raining it in on the territory they had 
been pushed back from and of which they had 
the range to an inch. We went up under that 
steady fire for a full hour. The casualties 
were heavy, and the galling part of it was 
that we couldn't hurry, it was so dark. Every 
time a shell burst overhead and the shrapnel 
pattered in the dirt all about, I kissed myself 
good-by and thought of the baked beans at 
home. Men kept falling, and I wished I 
hadn't enlisted. 

When we finally got up to the trench, believe 
me, we didn't need any orders to get in. We 
relieved the Black Watch, and they encouraged 
us by telling us they had lost over half their 
men in that trench, and that Fritz kept a con- 
stant fire on it. They didn't need to tell us. 
The big boys were coining over all the time. 

The dead here were enough to give you the 
horrors. I had never seen so many before 
and never saw so many afterwards in one 
place. They were all over the place, both 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 123 

Germans and our own men. And in all states 
of mutilation and decomposition. 

There were arms and legs sticking out of 
the trench sides. You could tell their national- 
ity by the uniforms. The Scotch predomi- 
nated. And their dead lay in the trenches and 
outside and hanging over the edges. I think 
it was here that I first got the real meaning 
of that old quotation about the curse of 
dead man's eye. With so many lying about, 
there were always eyes staring at you. 

Sometimes a particularly wide-staring corpse 
would seem to follow you with his gaze, like 
one of these posters with the pointing finger 
that they use to advertise Liberty Bonds. 
We would cover them up or turn them oVer. 
Here and there one would have a scornful 
death smile on his lips, as though he were 
laughing at the folly of the whole thing. 

The stench here was appalling. That fright- 
ful, sickening smell that strikes one in the 
face like something tangible. Ugh ! I im- 
mediately grew dizzy and faint and had a 
mad desire to run. I think if I hadn't been 
a non-com with a certain small amount of re- 



124 FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 

sponsibility to live up to, I should have gone 
crazy. 

I managed to pull myself together and 
placed my men as comfortably as possible. 
The Germans were five hundred yards away, 
and there was but little danger of an attack, 
so comparatively few had to "stand to." 
The rest took to the shelters. 

I found a little two-man shelter that every- 
body else had avoided and crawled in. I 
crowded up against a man in there and spoke 
to him. He didn't answer and then suddenly 
I became aware of a stench more powerful 
than ordinary. I put out my hand and thrust 
it into a slimy, cold mess. I had found a 
dead German with a gaping, putrefying wound 
in his abdomen. I crawled out of that shelter, 
gagging and retching. This time I simply 
couldn't smother my impulse to run, and run 
I did, into the next traverse, where I sank 
weak and faint on the fire step. I sat there 
the rest of the night, regardless of shells, my 
mind milling wildly on the problem of war 
and the reason thereof and cursing myself 
for a fool. 



FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 125 

It was very early in the morning when Wells 
shook me up with, "Hi sye, Darby, wot the 
blinkin' blazes is that noise?" 

We listened, and away from the rear came 
a tremendous whirring, burring, rumbling buzz, 
like a swarm of giant bees. I thought of every- 
thing from a Zeppelin to a donkey engine but 
couldn't make it out. Blofeld ran around the 
corner of a traverse and told us to get the 
men out. He didn't know what was coming 
and wasn't taking any chances. 

It was getting a little light though heavily 
misty. We waited, and then out of the gray 
blanket of fog waddled the great steel mon- 
sters that we were to know afterwards as the 
"tanks." I shall never forget it. 

In the half darkness they looked twice as 
big as they really were. They lurched for- 
ward, slow, clumsy but irresistible, nosing 
down into shell holes and out, crushing the 
unburied dead, sliding over mere trenches as 
though they did not exist. 

There were five in all. One passed directly 
over us. We scuttled out of the way, and 
the men let go a cheer. For we knew that 



12G FIRST SIGHT OF THE TANKS 
here was something thai could and would 

win battles. 

The tanks wore an absolutely now thing to 
us. Their secret had boon guarded so carefully 
even in our own army that our battalion had 
hoard nothing of them. 

But we didn't need to be told that they 
would be effective. One look was enough to 
convince us. Later it convinced Fritzie. 



CHAPTER X 

Following the Tanks into Battle 

HPIIE tanks passed beyond us ami half- 
way up to the first, line and stopped. 
Trapdoors in the decks opener], and the crews 
poured on I and began to pile sandbags in 
front of the machines so that when day broke 
fully and the rni.^fs lifted, the enemy could 
not see what had been brought up in the night. 

Day dawned, and a frisky little breeze from 
the west scattered the fog and swept the sky 
clean. There wasn't a cloud by eight o'clock. 
The sun shone bright, and we cursed it, for 
if it had been rainy the attack would not have 
been mad'-. 

We made the usual last preparations that 
morning, such as writing letters and delivering 
farewell messages; and the latest, rooks made 
their wills in the little blanks provided for the 
purpose in the back of the pay books. We 
judged from the number of dead and the 



128 FOLLOWING THE TANKS 

evident punishment other divisions had taken 
there that the chances of coming back would 
be slim. Around nine o'clock Captain Green 
gave us a little talk that confirmed our sus- 
picions that the day was to be a hard one. 
He said, as nearly as I can remember : 
"Lads, I want to tell you that there is to 
be a most important battle — one of the most 
important in the whole war. High Wood out 
there commands a view of the whole of this 
part of the Somme and is most valuable. 
There are estimated to be about ten thou- 
sand Germans in that wood and in the sur- 
rounding supports. The positions are mostly 
of concrete with hundreds of machine guns 
and field artillery. Our heavies have for 
some reason made no impression on them, 
and regiment after regiment has attempted 
to take the woods and failed with heavy losses. 
Now it is up to the 47th Division to do the 
seemingly impossible. Zero is at eleven. We 
go over then. The best of luck and God bless 

you." 

We were all feeling pretty sour on the world 
when the sky pilot came along and cheered us up. 



FOLLOWING THE TANKS 129 

He was a good little man, that chaplain, 
brave as they make 'em. He always went 
over the top with us and was in the thick of 
the fighting, and he had the military cross 
for bravery. He passed down the line, giving 
us a slap on the back or a hand grip and started 
us singing. No gospel hymns either, but any 
old rollicking, good-natured song that he hap- 
pened to think of that would loosen things 
up and relieve the tension. 

Somehow he made you feel that you wouldn't 
mind going to hell if he was along, and you 
knew that he'd be willing to come if he could 
do any good. A good little man ! Peace to 
his ashes. 

At ten o'clock things busted loose, and the 
most intense bombardment ever known in 
warfare up to that time began. Thousands 
of guns, both French and English, in fact 
every available gun within a radius of fifteen 
miles, poured it in. In the Bedlamitish din 
and roar it was impossible to hear the next 
man unless he put his mouth up close to your 
ear and yelled. 

My ear drums ached, and I thought I should 



130 FOLLOWING THE TANKS 

go insane if the racket didn't stop. I was 
frightfully nervous and scared, but tried not 
to show it. An officer or a non-com must 
conceal his nervousness, though he be dying 
with fright. 

The faces of the men were hard-set and pale. 
Some of them looked positively green. They 
smoked fag after fag, lighting the new ones 
on the butts. 

All through the bombardment Fritz was 
comparatively quiet. He was saving all his 
for the time when we should come over. Prob- 
ably, too, he was holed up to a large extent 
in his concrete dug-outs. I looked over the 
top once or twice and wondered if I, too, 
would be lying there unburied with the rats 
and maggots gnawing me into an unrecognizable 
mass. There were moments in that hour from 
ten to eleven when I was distinctly sorry for 
myself. 

The time, strangely enough, went fast — 
as it probably does with a condemned man in 
his last hour. At zero minus ten the word 
went down the line "Ten to go" and we got 
to the better positions of the trench and se- 



FOLLOWING THE TANKS 131 

cured our footing on the side of the parapet 
to make our climb over when the signal came. 
Some of the men gave their bayonets a last 
fond rub, and I looked to my bolt action to 
see that it worked well. I had ten rounds in 
the magazine, and I didn't intend to rely too 
much on the bayonet. At a few seconds of 
eleven I looked at my wrist watch and was 
afflicted again with that empty feeling in the 
solar plexus. Then the whistles shrilled; I 
blew mine, and over we went. 

To a disinterested spectator who was far 
enough up in the air to be out of range it 
must have been a wonderful spectacle to 
see those thousands of men go over, wave 
after wave. 

The terrain was level out to the point where 
the little hill of High Wood rose covered with 
the splintered poles of what had once been a 
forest. This position and the supports to the 
left and rear of it began to fairly belch ma- 
chine-gun and shell fire. If Fritz had been 
quiet before, he gave us all he had now. 

Our battalion went over from the second 
trench, and we got the cream of it. 



132 FOLLOWING THE TANKS 

The tanks were just ahead of us and lum- 
bered along in an imposing row. They lurched 
down into deep craters and out again, tipped 
and reeled and listed, and sometimes seemed 
as though they must upset ; but they came up 
each time and went on and on. And how slow 
they did seem to move ! Lord, I thought we 
should never cover that Hve or six hundred yards. 

The tank machine guns were spitting fire 
over the heads of our first wave, and their 
Hotchkiss guns were rattling. A beautiful 
creeping barrage preceded us. Row after 
row of shells burst at just the right distance 
ahead, spewing gobs of smoke and flashes of 
flame, made thin by the bright sunlight. Half 
a dozen airplanes circled like dragonflies up 
there in the blue. 

There was a tank just ahead of me. I got 
behind it. And marched there. Slow ! God, 
how slow! Anyhow, it kept off the machine- 
gun bullets, but not, the shrapnel. It was 
breaking over us in clouds. I felt the stunning 
patter of the fragments on my tin hat, cringed 
under it, and wondered vaguely why it didn't 
do me in. 



FOLLOWING THE TANKS 133 

Men in the front wave were going down 
like tenpins. Off there diagonally to the right 
and forward I glimpsed a blinding burst, and 
as much as a whole platoon went down. 

Around me men were dropping all the time 
— men I knew. I saw Dolbsie clawing at his 
throat as he reeled forward, falling. I saw 
Vickers double up, drop his rifle, and somer- 
sault, hanging on to his abdomen. 

A hundred yards away, to the right, an 
officer walked backwards with an automatic 
pistol balanced on his finger, smiling, pulling 
his men along like a drum major. A shell or 
something hit him. He disappeared in a 
welter of blood and half a dozen of the front 
file fell with him. 

I thought we must be nearly there and 
sneaked a look around the edge of the tank. 
A traversing machine gun raked the mud, 
throwing up handfuls, and I heard the gruff 
"row, row" of flattened bullets as they rico- 
cheted off the steel armor. I ducked back, 
and on we went. 

Slow ! Slow ! I found myself planning what 
I would do when I got to the front trenches 



134 FOLLOWING THE TANKS 

— if we ever did. There would be a grand 
rumpus, and I would click a dozen or more. 

And then we arrived. 

I don't suppose that trip across No Man's 
Land behind the tanks took over five minutes, 
but it seemed like an hour. 

At the end of it my participation in the 
battle of High Wood ended. No, I wasn't 
wounded. But when we reached the Boche front 
trenches a strange thing happened. There was 
no fight worth mentioning. The tanks stopped 
over the trenches and blazed away right and left 
with their all-around traverse. 

A few Bodies ran out and threw silly little 
bombs at the monsters. The tanks, noses 
in air, moved slowly on. And then the Gray- 
backs swarmed up out of shelters and dug-outs, 
literally in hundreds, and held up their hands, 
whining "Mercy, kamarad." 

We took prisoners by platoons. Blofeld 
grabbed me and turned over a gang of thirty 
to me. We searched them rapidly, cut their 
suspenders and belts, and I started to the 
rear with them. They seemed glad to go. 
So was I. 



FOLLOWING THE TANKS 135 

As we hurried back over the five hundred 
yards that had been No Man's Land and 
was now British ground, I looked back and 
saw the irresistible tanks smashing their way 
through the tree stumps of High Wood, still 
spitting death and destruction in three directions. 

Going back we were under almost as heavy 
fire as we had been coming up. When we 
were about half-way across, shrapnel burst 
directly over our party and seven of the prison- 
ers were killed and half a dozen wounded. I 
myself was unscratched. I stuck my hand 
inside my tunic and patted Dinky on the back, 
sent up a prayer for some more luck like that, 
and carried on. 

After getting my prisoners back to the rear, 
I came up again but couldn't find my battalion. 
I threw in with a battalion of Australians and 
was with them for twenty -four hours. 

When I found my chaps again, the battle of 
High Wood was pretty well over. Our com- 
pany for some reason had suffered very few 
casualties, less than twenty-nine. Company 
B, however, had been practically wiped out, 
losing all but thirteen men out of two hundred. 



136 FOLLOWING THE TANKS 

The other two companies had less than one 
hundred casualties. We had lost about a 
third of our strength. It is a living wonder 
to me that any of us came through. 

I don't believe any of us would have if it 
hadn't been for the tanks. 

The net result of the battle of High Wood 
was that our troops carried on for nearly two 
miles beyond the position to be taken. They 
had to fall back but held the wood and the 
heights. Three of the tanks were stalled in 
the farther edge of the woods — out of fuel — 
and remained there for three days unharmed 
under the fire of the German guns. 

Eventually some one ventured out and got 
some juice into them, and they returned to 
our lines. The tanks had proved themselves, 
not only as effective fighting machines, but as 
destroyers of German morale. 



CHAPTER XI 

Prisoners 

TT^OR weeks after our first introduction to 
the tanks they were the chief topic of 
conversation in our battalion. And, notwith- 
standing the fact that we had seen the monsters 
go into action, had seen what they did and the 
effect they had on the Boche, the details of 
their building and of their mechanism remained 
a mystery for a long time. 

For weeks about all we knew about them 
was what we gathered from their appearance 
as they reeled along, camouflaged with browns 
and yellows like great toads, and that they 
were named with quaint names like "Creme 
de Menthe" and "Diplodocus." 

Eventually I met with a member of the 
crews who had manned the tanks at the battle 
of High Wood, and I obtained from him a 
description of some of his sensations. It was 



138 PRISONERS 

a thing we had all wondered about, — how the 
men inside felt as they went over. 

My tanker was a young fellow not over 
twenty-five, a machine gunner, and in a little 
estaminet, over a glass of citron and soda, he 
told me of his first battle. 

"Before we went in," he said, "I was a little 
bit uncertain as to how we were coming out. 
We had tried the old boats out and had given 
them every reasonable test. We knew how 
much they would stand in the way of shells 
on top and in the way of bombs or mines 
underneath. Still there was all the difference 
between rehearsal and the actual going on the 
stage. 

"When we crawled in through the trapdoor 
for the first time over, the shut-up feeling got 
me. I'd felt it before but not that way. I 
got to imagining what would happen if we got 
stalled somewhere in the Boche lines, and they 
built a fire around us. That was natural, 
because it's hot inside a tank at the best. 
You mustn't smoke either. I hadn't minded 
that in rehearsal, but in action I was crazy 
for a fag. 



PRISONERS 139 

"We went across, you remember, at eleven, 
and the sun was shining bright. We were 
parboiled before we started, and when we got 
going good it was like a Turkish bath. I was 
stripped to the waist and was dripping. Be- 
sides that, when we begun to give 'em hell, 
the place filled with gas, and it was stifling. 
The old boat pitched a good deal going into 
shell holes, and it was all a man could do to 
keep his station. I put my nose up to my loop- 
hole to get air, but only once. The machine- 
gun bullets were simply rattling on our hide. 
Tock, tock, tock they kept drumming. The 
first shell that hit us must have been head on 
and a direct hit. There was a terrific crash, 
and the old girl shook all over, — seemed to 
pause a little even. But no harm was done. 
After that we breathed easier. We hadn't 
been quite sure that the Boche shells wouldn't 
do us in. 

"By the time we got to the Boche trenches, 
we knew he hadn't anything that could hurt 
us. We just sat and raked him and laughed 
and wished it was over, so we could get the 
air." 



140 PRISONERS 

I had already seen the effect of the tanks 
on the Germans. The batch of prisoners who 
had been turned over to me seemed dazed. 
One who spoke English said in a quavering 
voice : 

"Gott in Himmel, Kamarad, how could one 
endure? These things are not human. They 
are not fair." 

That "fair" thing made a hit with me after 
going against tear gas and hearing about liquid 
fire and such things. 

The great number of the prisoners we took 
at High Wood were very scared looking at 
first and very surly. They apparently ex- 
pected to be badly treated and perhaps tor- 
tured. They were tractable enough for the 
most part. But they needed watching, and 
they got it from me, as I had heard much of 
the treachery of the Boche prisoners. 

On the way to the rear with my bunch, I 
ran into a little episode which showed the 
foolishness of trusting a German, — partic- 
ularly an officer. 

I was herding my lot along when we came 
up with about twelve in charge of a young 



PRISONERS 141 

fellow from a Leicester regiment. He was 
a private, and as most of his non-commis- 
sioned officers had been put out of action, 
he was acting corporal. We were walking 
together behind the prisoners, swapping notes 
on the fight, when one of his stopped, and no 
amount of coaxing would induce him to go 
any farther. He was an officer, of what rank 
I don't know, but judging from his age prob- 
ably a lieutenant. 

Finally Crane — that was the Leicester 
chap — went up to the officer, threatened him 
with his bayonet, and let him know that he 
was due for the cold steel if he didn't get up 
and hike. 

Whereupon Mr. Fritz pulled an automatic 
from under his coat — he evidently had not 
been carefully searched — and aimed it at 
Crane. Crane dove at him and grabbed his 
wrist, but was too late. The gun went off 
and tore away Crane's right cheek. He didn't 
go down, however, and before I could get in 
without danger to Crane, he polished off the 
officer on the spot. 

The prisoners looked almost pleased. I 



142 PRISONERS 

suppose they knew the officer too well. I 
bandaged Crane and offered to take his pris- 
oners in, but he insisted upon carrying on. 
He got very weak from loss of blood after a 
bit, and I had two of the Boches carry him to 
the nearest dressing station, where they took 
care of him. I have often wondered whether 
the poor chap "clicked" it. 

Eventually I got my batch of prisoners 
back to headquarters and turned them over. 
I want to say a word right here as to the treat- 
ment of the German prisoners by the British. 
In spite of the verified stories of the brutality 
shown to the Allied prisoners by the Hun, the 
English and French have too much humanity 
to retaliate. Time and again I have seen 
British soldiers who were bringing in Germans 
stop and spend their own scanty pocket money 
for their captives' comfort. I have done it 
myself. 

Almost inevitably the Boche prisoners were 
expecting harsh treatment. I found several 
who said that they had been told by their 
officers that they would be skinned alive if 
they surrendered to the English. They be- 



PRISONERS 143 

lieved it, and you could hardly blame the poor 
devils for being scared. 

Whenever we were taking prisoners back, 
we always, unless we were in too much of a 
hurry, took them to the nearest canteen run 
by the Y. M. C. A. or by one of the artillery 
companies, and here we would buy English 
or American fags. And believe me, they liked 
them. Any one who has smoked the tobacco 
issued to the German army could almost under- 
stand a soldier surrendering just to get away 
from it. 

Usually, too, we bought bread and sweets, 
if we could stand the price. The Heinies 
would bolt the food down as though they were 
half starved. And it was perfectly clear from 
the way they went after the luxuries that they 
got little more than the hard necessities of 
army fare. 

At the battle of High Wood the prisoners 
we took ran largely to very young fellows and to 
men of fifty or over. Some of the youngsters 
said they were only seventeen and they looked 
not over fifteen. Many of them had never 
shaved. 



144 PRISONERS 

I think the sight of those war-worn boys, 
haggard and hard, already touched with cruelty 
and blood lust, brought home to me closer 
than ever before what a hellish thing war is, 
and how keenly Germany must be suffering, 
along with the rest of us. 



CHAPTER XII 

I Become a Bomber 

1KTHEN I found my battalion, the battle 
of High Wood had pretty well quieted 
down. We had taken the position we went 
after, and the fighting was going on to the 
north and beyond the Wood. The Big Push 
progressed very rapidly as the summer drew 
to a close. Our men were holding one of the 
captured positions in the neighborhood of the 
Wood. 

It must have been two days after we went 
over the top with the tanks that Captain Green 
had me up and told me that I was promoted. 
At least that was what he called it. I differed 
with him, but didn't say so. 

The Captain said that as I had had a course 
in bombing, he thought he would put me in 
the Battalion Bombers. 

I protested that the honor was too great 



146 I BECOME A BOMBER 

and that I really didn't think I was good 
enough. 

After that the Captain said that he didn't 
think I was going in the bombers. He knew 
it. I was elected ! 

I didn't take any joy whatever in the ap- 
pointment, but orders are orders and they 
have to be obeyed. The bombers are called 
the "Suicide Club" and are well named. The 
mortality in this branch of the service is as 
great if not greater than in any other. 

In spite of my feelings in the matter, I 
accepted the decision cheerfully — like a man 
being sentenced to be electrocuted — and man- 
aged to convey the impression to Captain 
Green that I was greatly elated and that I 
looked forward to future performances with 
large relish. After that I went back to my 
shelter and made a new will. 

That very night I was called upon to take 
charge of a bombing party of twelve men. 
A lieutenant, Mr. May, one of the bravest 
men I ever knew, was to be of the party and 
in direct command. I was to have the selec- 
tion of the men. 



I BECOME A BOMBER 147 

Captain Green had me up along with Lieu- 
tenant May early in the evening, and as nearly 
as I can remember these were his instructions : 

"Just beyond High Wood and to the left 
there is a sap or small trench leading to the 
sunken road that lies between the towns of 
Albert and Bapaume. That position com- 
mands a military point that we find necessary 
to hold before we can make another attack. 
The Germans are in the trench. They have 
two machine guns and will raise the devil with 
us unless we get them out. It will cost a good 
many lives if we attempt to take the position 
by attack, but we are under the impression 
that a bombing party in the night on a surprise 
attack will be able to take it with little loss of 
life. Take your twelve men out there at ten 
o'clock and take that trench! You will take 
only bombs with you. You and Mr. May 
will have revolvers. After taking the trench, 
consolidate it, and before morning there will 
be relief sent out to you. The best of luck!" 

The whole thing sounded as simple as 
ABC. All we had to do was go over there 
and take the place. The captain didn't say 



148 I BECOME A BOMBER 

how many Germans there would be nor what 
they would be doing while we were taking their 
comfortable little position. Indeed he seemed 
to quite carelessly leave the Boche out of the 
reckoning. I didn't. I knew that some of 
us, and quite probably most of us, would 
never come back. 

I selected my men carefully, taking only the 
coolest and steadiest and the best bombers. 
Most of them were men who had been at 
Dover with me. I felt like an executioner 
when I notified them of their selection. 

At nine-thirty we were ready, stripped to 
the lightest of necessary equipment. Each of 
the men was armed with a bucket of bombs. 
Some carried an extra supply in satchels, so 
we knew there would be no shortage of Millses. 

Lieutenant May took us out over the top 
on schedule time, and we started for the posi- 
tion to be taken. We walked erect but in the 
strictest silence for about a thousand yards. 
At that time the distances were great on the 
Somme, as the Big Push was in full swing, and 
the advance had been fast. Trench systems 
had been demolished, and in many places there 



I BECOME A BOMBER 149 

were only shell holes and isolated pieces of 
trench defended by machine guns. The whole 
movement had progressed so far that the lines 
were far apart and broken, so much so that 
in many cases the fighting had come back to the 
open work of early in the war. 

Poking along out there, I had the feeling 
that we were an awfully long way from the 
comparative safety of our main body — too 
far away for comfort. We were. Any doubts 
on the matter disappeared before morning. 

At the end of the thousand yards Lieutenant 
May gave the signal to lie down. We lay still 
half an hour or so and then crawled forward. 
Fortunately there was no barbed wire, as all 
entanglements had been destroyed by the terrific 
bombardment that had been going on for 
weeks. The Germans made no attempt to 
repair it nor did we. 

We crawled along for about ten minutes, 
and the Lieutenant passed the word in whis- 
pers to get ready, as we were nearly on them. 
Each of us got out a bomb, pulled the pin with 
our teeth, and waited for the signal. It was 
fairly still. Away off to the rear, guns were 



150 I BECOME A BOMBER 

going, but they seemed a long way off. For- 
ward, and away off to the right beyond the 
Wood, there was a lot of rifle and machine-gun 
fire, and we could see the sharp little lavender 
stabs of flame like electric flashes. It was 
light enough so that we could see dimly. 

Just ahead we could hear the murmur of 
the Huns as they chatted in the trench. They 
hadn't seen us. Evidently they didn't sus- 
pect and were more or less careless. 

The Lieutenant waited until the sound of 
voices was a little louder than before, the 
Boches evidently being engaged in a fireside 
argument of some kind, and then he jumped to 
his feet shouting, "Now then, my lads. All 
together ! " 

We came up all standing and let 'em go. 
It was about fifteen yards to Fritz, and that 
is easy to a good bomber, as my men all were. 
A yell of surprise and fright went up from the 
trench, and they started to run. We spread 
out so as to get room, gave them another 
round of Millses, and rushed. 

The trench wasn't really a trench at all. It 
was the remains of a perfectly good one, but 



I BECOME A BOMBER 151 

had been bashed all to pieces, and was now 
only five or six shell craters connected by the 
ruined traverses. At no point was it more 
than waist high and in some places only knee 
high. We swarmed into what was left of the 
trench and after the Heinies. There must 
have been forty of them, and it didn't take them 
long to find out that we were only a dozen. 
Then they came back at us. We got into a 
crooked bit of traverse that was in relatively 
good shape and threw up a barricade of sand- 
bags. There was any amount of them lying 
about. 

The Germans gave us a bomb or two and 
considerable rifle fire, and we beat it around 
the corner of the bay. Then we had it back 
and forth, a regular seesaw game. We would 
chase them back from the barricade, and then 
they would rush us and back we would go. 
After we had lost three men and Lieutenant 
May had got a slight wound, we got desperate 
and got out of the trench and rushed them for 
further orders. We fairly showered them as 
we followed them up, regardless of danger to 
ourselves. All this scrap through they hadn't 



152 I BECOME A BOMBER 

done anything with the machine guns. One 
was in our end of the trench, and we found that 
the other was out of commission. They must 
have been short of small-arm ammunition and 
bombs, because on that last strafing they cleared 
out and stayed. 

After the row was over we counted noses 
and found four dead and three slightly wounded, 
including Lieutenant May. I detailed two 
men to take the wounded and the Lieutenant 
back. That left four of us to consolidate the 
position. The Lieutenant promised to return 
with relief, but as it turned out he was worse 
than he thought, and he didn't get back. 

I turned to and inspected the position. 
It was pretty hopeless. There really wasn't 
much to consolidate. The whole works was 
knocked about and was only fit for a temporary 
defence. There were about a dozen German 
dead, and we searched them but found nothing 
of value. So we strengthened our cross-trench 
barricade and waited for the relief. It never 
came. 

When it began to get light, the place looked 
even more discouraging. There was little or 



I BECOME A BOMBER 153 

no cover. We knew that unless we got some 
sort of concealment, the airplanes would spot 
us, and that we would get a shell or two. So 
we got out the entrenching tools and dug into 
the side of the best part of the shallow trav- 
erse. We finally got a slight overhang scraped 
out. We didn't dare go very far under for 
fear that it would cave. We got some sand- 
bags up on the sides and three of us crawled 
into the shelter. The other man made a sim- 
ilar place for himself a little distance off. 

The day dawned clear and bright and gave 
promise of being hot. Along about seven 
we began to get hungry. A Tommy is always 
hungry, whether he is in danger or not. When 
we took account of stock and found that none 
of us had brought along "iron rations", we 
discovered that we were all nearly starved. 
Killing is hungry work. 

We had only ourselves to blame. We had 
been told repeatedly never to go anywhere 
without "iron rations", but Tommy is a good 
deal of a child and unless you show him the 
immediate reason for a thing he is likely to 
disregard instructions. I rather blamed my- 



154 I BECOME A BOMBER 

self in this case for not seeing that the men 
had their emergency food. In fact, it was 
my duty to see that they had. But I had 
overlooked it. And I hadn't brought any 
myself. 

The "iron ration" consists of a pound of 
"bully beef", a small tin containing tea and 
sugar enough for two doses, some Oxo cubes, 
and a few biscuits made of reinforced concrete. 
They are issued for just such an emergency as 
we were in as we lay in our isolated dug-out. 
The soldier is apt to get into that sort of situa- 
tion almost any time, and it is folly ever to be 
without the ration. 

Well, we didn't have ours, and we knew 
we wouldn't get any before night, if we did 
then. One thing we had too much of. That 
was rum. The night before a bunch of us had 
been out on a ration party, and we had come 
across a Brigade Dump. This is a station 
where rations are left for the various com- 
panies to come and draw their own, also ammo 
and other necessities. There was no one 
about, and we had gone through the outfit. 
We found two cases of rum, four gallons in a 



I BECOME A BOMBER 155 

case, and we promptly filled our bottles, more 
than a pint each. 

Tommy is always very keen on his rum. 
The brand used in the army is high proof and 
burns like fire going down, but it is warming. 
The regular ration as served after a cold sentry 
go is called a "tot." It is enough to keep 
the cold out and make a man wish he had 
another. The average Tommy will steal rum 
whenever he can without the danger of getting 
caught. 

It happened that all four of us were in the 
looting party and had our bottles full. Also 
it happened that we were all normally quite 
temperate and hadn't touched our supply. 

So we all took a nip and tightened up our 
belts. Then we took another and another. 
We lay on our backs with our heads out of the 
burrow, packed in like sardines and looking 
up at the sky. Half a dozen airplanes came 
out and flew over. We had had a hard night 
and we all dozed off, at least I did, and I guess 
the others did also. 

Around nine we all waked up, and Bones 
— he was the fellow in the middle — began to 



156 I BECOME A BOMBER 

complain of thirst. Then we all took another 
nip and wished it was water. We discussed 
the matter of crawling down to a muddy pool 
at the end of the traverse and having some out 
of that, but passed it up as there was a dead 
man lying in it. Bones, who was pretty well 
educated — he once asked me if I had visited 
Emerson's home and was astounded that I 
hadn't — quoted from Kipling something to 
the effect that, 

When you come to slaughter 
You'll do your work on water, 
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im 
that's got it. 

Then Bones cursed the rum and took an- 
other nip. So did the rest of us. 

There was a considerable bombardment 
going on all the forenoon, but few shells came 
anywhere near us. Some shrapnel burst over 
us a little way off to the right, and some of the 
fragments fell in the trench, but on the whole 
the morning was uncomfortable but not dan- 
gerous. 

Around half-past ten we saw an airplane 
fight that was almost worth the forenoon's 



I BECOME A BOMBER 157 

discomfort. A lot of them had been circling 
around ever since daybreak. When the fight 
started, two of our planes were nearly over 
us. Suddenly we saw three Boche planes vol- 
planing down from away up above. They grew 
bigger and bigger and opened with their guns 
when they were nearly on top of our fellows. 
No hits. Then all five started circling for 
top position. One of the Boches started to 
fall and came down spinning, but righted him- 
self not more than a thousand feet up. Our 
anti air-craft guns opened on him, and we could 
see the shells bursting with little cottony puffs 
all around. Some of the shrapnel struck near 
us. They missed him, and up he went again. 
Presently all five came circling lower and 
lower, jockeying for position and spitting 
away with their guns. As they all got to the 
lower levels, the anti air-craft guns stopped fir- 
ing, fearing to get our men. 

Suddenly one of the Huns burst into flames 
and came toppling down behind his lines, his 
gas tank ablaze. Almost immediately one of 
ours dropped, also burning and behind the 
Boche lines. 



158 I BECOME A BOMBER 

After that it was two to one, and the fight 
lasted more than ten minutes. Then down 
went a Hun, not afire but tumbling end over 
end behind our lines. I learned afterwards 
that this fellow was unhurt and was taken 
prisoner. That left it an even thing. We 
could see half a dozen planes rushing to attack 
the lone Boche. He saw them too. For he 
turned tail and skedaddled for home. 

Bonesie began to philosophize on the cold- 
bloodedness of air fighting and really worked 
himself up into an almost optimistic frame of 
mind. He was right in the midst of a flowery 
oration on our comparative safety, "nestling 
on the bosom of Mother Earth", when, with- 
out any warning whatever, there came a per- 
fect avalanche of shell all around us. 

I knew perfectly well that we were caught. 
The shells, as near as we could see, were com- 
ing from our side. Doubtless our people 
thought that the trench was still manned by 
Germans, and they were shelling for the big 
noon attack. Such an attack was made, as 
I learned afterwards, but I never saw it. 

At eleven o'clock I looked at my watch. 



I BECOME A BOMBER 150 

Somehow I didn't fear death, although I felt 
it was near. Maybe the rum was working. 
I turned to Bonesie and said, "What about 
that safety stuff, old top?" 

"Cheer, cheer, Darby," said he. "We may 
pull through yet." 

"Don't think so," I insisted. "It's us for 
pushing up the daisies. Good luck if we don't 
meet again !" 

I put my hand in and patted Dinky on the 
back, and sent up another little prayer for 
luck. Then there was a terrific shock, and 
everything went black. 

When I came out of it, I had the sensation 
of struggling up out of water. I thought for 
an instant that I was drowning. And in effect 
that was almost what was happening to me. 
I was buried, all but one side of my face. A 
tremendous weight pressed down on me, and 
I could only breathe in little gasps. 

I tried to move my legs and arms and 
couldn't. Then I wiggled my fingers and toes 
to see if any bones were broken. They wiggled 
all right. My right nostril and eye were full 
of dirt; also my mouth. I spit out the dirt 



160 I BECOME A BOMBER 

and moved my head until my nose and eye 
were clear. I ached all over. 

It was along toward sundown. Up aloft 
a single airplane was winging toward our lines. 
I remember that I wondered vaguely if he was 
the same fellow who had been fighting just 
before the world fell in on me. 

I tried to sing out to the rest of the men, 
but the best I could do was a kind of loud 
gurgle. There was no answer. My head was 
humming, and the blood seemed to be burst- 
ing my ears. I was terribly sorry for myself 
and tried to pull my strength together for a 
big try at throwing the weight off my chest, 
but I was absolutely helpless. Then again I 
slid out of consciousness. 

It was dark when I struggled up through 
the imaginary water again. I was still breath- 
ing in gasps, and I could feel my heart going 
in great thumps that hurt and seemed to shake 
the ground. My tongue was curled up and 
dry, and fever was simply burning me up. 
My mind was clear, and I wished that I hadn't 
drunk that rum. Finding I could raise my 
head a little, I cocked it up, squinting over 



I BECOME A BOMBER 161 

my cheek bones — I was on my back — and 
could catch the far-off flicker of the silver- 
green flare lights. There was a rattle of mus- 
ketry off in the direction where the Boche 
lines ought to be. From behind came the 
constant boom of big guns. I lay back and 
watched the stars, which were bright and un- 
commonly low. Then a shell burst near by, 
— not near enough to hurt, — but buried as 
I was the whole earth seemed to shake. My 
heart stopped beating, and I went out again. 

When I came to the next time, it was still 
dark, and somebody was lifting me on to a 
stretcher. My first impression was of getting 
a long breath. I gulped it down, and with 
every grateful inhalation I felt my ribs pain- 
fully snapping back into place. Oh, Lady ! 
Didn't I just eat that air up. 

And then, having gotten filled up with the 
long-denied oxygen, I asked, "Where's the 
others ? " 

"Ayen't no hothers," was the brief reply. 

And there weren't. Later I reconstructed 
the occurrences of the night from what I was 
told by the rescuing party. 



162 I BECOME A BOMBER 

A big shell had slammed down on us, drill- 
ing Bonesie, the man in the middle, from end 
to end. He was demolished. The shell was 
a "dud", that is, it didn't explode. If it had, 
there wouldn't have been anything whatever 
left of any of us. As it was our overhang 
caved in, letting sandbags and earth down on 
the remaining man and myself. The other 
man was buried clean under. He had life 
in him still when he was dug out but "went 
west" in about ten minutes. 

The fourth man was found dead from shrap- 
nel. I found, too, that the two un wounded 
men who had gone back with Lieutenant May 
had both been killed on the way in. So out 
of the twelve men who started on the "suicide 
club" stunt I was the only one left. Dinky 
was still inside my tunic, and I laid the luck 
all to him. 

Back in hospital I was found to be suffering 
from shell shock. Also my heart was pushed 
out of place. There were no bones broken, 
though I was sore all over, and several ribs 
were pulled around so that it was like a knife 
thrust at every breath. Besides that, my 



I BECOME A BOMBER 163 

nerves were shattered. I jumped a foot at 
the slightest noise and twitched a good deal. 

At the end of a week I asked the M. O. if 
I would get Blighty and he said he didn't 
think so, not directly. He rather thought 
that they would keep me in hospital for a 
month or two and see how I came out. The 
officer was a Canadian and had a sense of 
humor and was most affable. I told him if 
this jamming wasn't going to get me Blighty, 
I wanted to go back to duty and get a real 
one. He laughed and tagged me for a beach 
resort at Ault-Onival on the northern coast of 
France. 

I was there a week and had a bully time. 
The place had been a fashionable watering 
place before the war, and when I was there 
the transient population was largely wealthy 
Belgians. They entertained a good deal and 
did all they could for the pleasure of the four 
thousand boys who were at the camp. The 
Y. M. C. A. had a huge tent and spread them- 
selves in taking care of the soldiers. There 
were entertainments almost every night, mov- 
ing pictures, and music. The food was awfully 



164 I BECOME A BOMBER 

good and the beds comfortable, and that 
pretty nearly spells heaven to a man down 
from the front. 

Best of all, the bathing was fine, and it was 
possible to keep the cooties under control, — 
more or less. I went in bathing two and three 
times daily as the sloping shore made it just 
as good at low tide as at high. 

I think that glorious week at the beach 
made the hardships of the front just left 
behind almost worth while. My chum, Cor- 
poral Wells, who had a quaint Cockney phi- 
losophy, used to say that he liked to have the 
stomach ache because it felt so good when it 
stopped. On the same theory I became nearly 
convinced that a month in the trenches was 
good fun because it felt so good to get out. 

At the end of the week I was better but still 
shaky. I started pestering the M. O. to tag 
me for Blighty. He wouldn't, so I sprung the 
same proposition on him that I had on the doc- 
tor at the base, — to send me back to duty 
if he couldn't send me to England. The brute 
took me at my word and sent me back to the 
battalion. 



I BECOME A BOMBER 165 

I rejoined on the Somme again just as they 
were going back for the second time in that 
most awful part of the line. Many of the old 
faces were gone. Some had got the wooden 
cross, and some had gone to Blighty. 

I sure was glad when old Wellsie hopped out 
and grabbed me. 

"Gawd lumme, Darby," he said. "Hi sye, 
an' me thinkin' as 'ow you was back in Blighty. 
An' 'ere ye are yer blinkin' old self. Or is it 
yer bloomin' ghost. I awsks ye. Strike me 
pink, Yank. I'm glad." 

And he was. At that I did feel more or less 
ghostly. I seemed to have lost some of my 
confidence. I expected to "go west" on the 
next time in. And that's a bad way to feel 
out there. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Back on the Somme Again 

\\ THEN I rejoined the battalion they were 

" just going into the Somme again after 

a two weeks' rest. They didn't like it a bit. 

"Gawd lumme," says Wellsie, "'ave we 
got to fight th' 'ole blinkin' war. Is it right? 
I awsks yer. Is it?" 

It was all wrong. We had been told after 
High Wood that we would not have to go into 
action again in that part of the line but 
that we would have a month of rest and after 
that would be sent up to the Ypres sector. 
" Wipers " hadn't been any garden of roses early 
in the war, but it was paradise now compared 
with the Somme. 

It was a sad lot of men when we swung out 
on the road again back to the Somme, and 
there was less singing than usual. That first 
night we remained at Mametz Wood. We 
figured that we would get to kip while the kip- 



BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 167 

ping was good. There were some old Boche 
dug-outs in fair condition, and we were in a 
fair way to get comfortable. No luck ! 

We were hardly down to a good sleep when 
C company was called to fall in without equip- 
ment, and we knew that meant fatigue of 
some sort. I have often admired the unknown 
who invented that word "fatigue" as applied 
in a military term. He used it as a disguise 
for just plain hard work. It means anything 
whatever in the way of duty that does not 
have to do directly with the manning of the 
trenches. 

This time we clicked a burial fatigue. It 
was my first. I never want another. I took 
a party of ten men and we set out, armed with 
picks and shovels, and, of course, rifles and 
bandoliers (cloth pockets containing fifty 
rounds of ammo). 

We hiked three miles up to High Wood and 
in the early morning began the job of getting 
some of the dead under ground. We were 
almost exactly in the same place from which 
we had gone over after the tanks. I kept 
expecting all the time to run across the bodies 



168 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 

of some of our own men. It was a most un- 
pleasant feeling. 

Some cleaning up had already been done, 
so the place was not so bad as it had been, 
but it was bad enough. The advance had gone 
forward so far that we were practically out of 
shell range, and we were safe working. 

The burial method was to dig a pit four 
feet deep and big enough to hold six men. 
Then we packed them in. The worst part of 
it was that most of the bodies were pretty 
far gone and in the falling away stage. It 
was hard to move them. I had to put on my 
gas mask to endure the stench and so did some 
of the other men. Some who had done this 
work before rather seemed to like it. 

I would search a body for identification 
marks and jot down the data found on a piece 
of paper. When the man was buried under, 
I would stick a rifle up over him and tuck the 
record into the trap in the butt of the gun where 
the oil bottle is carried. 

When the pioneers came up, they would 
remove the rifle and substitute a little wooden 
cross with the name painted on it. The 



BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 169 

indifference with which the men soon came to 
regard this burial fatigue was amazing. I 
remember one incident of that first morning, 
a thing that didn't seem at all shocking at the 
time, but which, looking back upon it, illus- 
trates the matter-of-factness of the soldier's 
viewpoint on death. 

"Hi sye, Darby," sang out one fellow. 
"Hi got a blighter 'ere wif only one leg. Wot'll 
Hidowif'im?" 

"Put him under with only one, you blink- 
ing idiot," said I. 

Presently he called out again, this time 
with a little note of satisfaction and triumph 
in his voice. 

"Darby, Hi sye. I got a leg for that 
bleeder. Fits 'im perfect." 

Well, I went over and took a look and to 
my horror found that the fool had stuck a 
German leg on the body, high boot and all. 
I wouldn't stand for that and had it out again. 
I wasn't going to send a poor fellow on his last 
pilgrimage with any Boche leg, and said so. 
Later I heard this undertaking genius of a 
Tommy grousing and muttering to himself. 



170 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 

"Cawn't please Darby," says he, "no mat- 
ter wot. Fawncy the blighter'd feel better 
wif two legs, if one was Boche. It's a fair 
crime sendin' 'im hover the river wif only 
one." 

I was sure thankful when that burial fatigue 
was over, and early in the forenoon we started 
back to rest. 

Rest, did I say? Not that trip. We were 
hardly back to Mametz and down to breakfast 
when along came an order to fall in for a carry- 
ing party. All that day we carried boxes of 
Millses up to the dump that was by High 
Wood, three long miles over hard going. 
Being a corporal had its compensations at 
this game, as I had no carrying to do; but 
inasmuch as the bombs were moved two boxes 
to a man, I got my share of the hard work 
helping men out of holes and lending a hand 
when they were mired. 

Millses are packed with the bombs and 
detonators separate in the box, and the men 
are very careful in the handling of them. So 
the moving of material of this kind is wearing. 

Another line of man-killers that we had to 



BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 171 

move were "toffy apples." This quaint toy 
is a huge bomb, perfectly round and weighing 
sixty pounds, with a long rod or pipe which 
inserts into the mortar. Toffy apples are about 
the awkwardest thing imaginable to carry. 

This carrying stunt went on for eight long 
days and nights. We worked on an average 
sixteen hours a day. It rained nearly all 
the time, and we never got dried out. The 
food was awful, as the advance had been so 
fast that it was almost impossible to get up the 
supplies, and the men in the front trenches 
had the first pick of the grub. It was also up 
to us to get the water up to the front. The 
method on this was to use the five-gallon 
gasoline cans. Sometimes they were washed 
out, oftener they weren't. Always the water 
tasted of gas. We got the same thing, and 
several times I became sick drinking the stuff. 

When that eight days of carrying was over, 
we were so fed up that we didn't care whether 
we clicked or not. Maybe it was good mental 
preparation for what was to come, for on top 
of it all it turned out that we were to go over 
the top in another big attack. 



172 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 

When we got that news, I got Dinky out 
and scolded him. Maybe I'd better tell you 
all about Dinky before I go any farther. 
Soldiers are rather prone to superstitions. 
Relieved of all responsibility and with most 
of their thinking done for them, they revert 
surprisingly quick to a state of more or less 
savage mentality. Perhaps it would be better 
to call the state childlike. At any rate they 
accumulate a lot of fool superstitions and hang 
to them. The height of folly and the superla- 
tive invitation to bad luck is lighting three 
fags on one match. When that happens one 
of the three is sure to click it soon. 

As one out of any group of three anywhere 
stands a fair chance of "getting his", fag or 
no fag, the thing is reasonably sure to work 
out according to the popular belief. Most 
every man has his unlucky day in the trenches. 
One of mine was Monday. The others were 
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat- 
urday, and Sunday. 

Practically every soldier carries some kind 
of mascot or charm. A good many are cruci- 
fixes and religious tokens. Some are coins. 



BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 173 

Corporal Wells had a sea shell with three little 
black spots on it. He considered three his 
lucky number. Thirteen was mine. My mas- 
cot was the aforesaid and much revered Dinky. 
Dinky was and is a small black cat made of 
velvet. He's entirely flat except his head, 
which is becomingly round with yellow glass 
eyes. I carried Dinky inside my tunic always 
and felt safer with him there. He hangs at 
the head of my bed now and I feel better with 
him there. I realize perfectly that all this 
sounds like tommyrot, and that superstition 
may be a relic of barbarism and ignorance. 
Never mind ! Wellsie sized the situation up 
one day when we were talking about this very 
thing. 

"Maybe my shell ayen't doin' me no good," 
says Wells. "Maybe Dinky ayen't doin' you 
no good. But 'e ayen't doin' ye no 'arm. So 
'ang on to 'im." 

I figure that if there's anything in war that 
"ayen't doin' ye no 'arm", it is pretty good 
policy to "'ang on to it." 

It was Sunday the eighth day of October 
that the order came to move into what was 



174 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 

called the "O. G. I.", that is, the old German 
first line. You will understand that this was 
the line the Boches had occupied a few days 
before and out of which they had been driven 
in the Big Push. In front of this trench was 
Eaucort Abbaye, which had been razed with 
the aid of the tanks. 

We had watched this battle from the rear 
from the slight elevation of High Wood, and 
it had been a wonderful sight to see other men 
go out over the top without having ourselves 
to think about. They had poured out, wave 
after wave, a large part of them Scotch with 
their kilted rumps swinging in perfect time, a 
smashing barrage going on ahead, and the 
tanks lumbering along with a kind of clumsy 
majesty. When they hit the objective, the 
tanks crawled in and made short work of it. 

The infantry had hard work of it after the 
positions were taken, as there were numerous 
underground caverns and passages which had 
to be mopped out. This was done by drop- 
ping smoke bombs in the entrances and smok- 
ing the Boches out like bees. 

When we came up, we inherited these under- 



BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 175 

ground shelters, and they were mighty com- 
fortable after the kipping in the muck. There 
were a lot of souvenirs to be picked up, and 
almost everybody annexed helmets and other 
truck that had been left behind by the Ger- 
mans. 

Sometimes it was dangerous to go after 
souvenirs too greedily. The inventive Hun 
had a habit of fixing up a body with a bomb 
under it and a tempting wrist watch on the 
hand. If you started to take the watch, the 
bomb went off, and after that you didn't care 
what time it was. 

I accumulated a number of very fine razors, 
and one of the saw-tooth bayonets the Boche 
pioneers use. This is a perfectly hellish weapon 
that slips in easily and mangles terribly when 
it is withdrawn. I had thought that I would 
have a nice collection of souvenirs to take to 
Blighty if I ever got leave. I got the leave all 
right, and shortly, but the collection stayed 
behind. 

The dug-out that Number 10 drew was 
built of concrete and was big enough to accom- 
modate the entire platoon. We were well 



176 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 

within the Boche range and early in the day 
had several casualties, one of them a chap 
named Stransfield, a young Yorkshireman 
who was a very good friend of mine. Stransie 
was sitting on the top step cleaning his rifle 
and was blown to pieces by a falling shell. 
After that we kept to cover all day and slept 
all the time. We needed it after the exhaust- 
ing work of the past eight days. 

It was along about dark when I was awak- 
ened by a runner from headquarters, which 
was in a dug-out a little way up the line, with 
word that the platoon commanders were 
wanted. I happened to be in command of the 
platoon, as Mr. Blofeld was acting second in 
command of the company, Sergeant Page was 
away in Havre as instructor for a month, and 
I was next senior. 

I thought that probably this was merely 
another detail for some fatigue, so I asked 
Wells if he would go. He did and in about 
half an hour came back with a face as long as 
my arm. I was sitting on the fire step clean- 
ing my rifle and Wellsie sank dejectedly down 
beside me. 



BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 177 

"Darby," he sighed hopelessly, "wot th' 
blinkin' 'ell do you think is up now?" 

I hadn't the faintest idea and said so. I had, 
however, as the educated Bones used to say "a 
premonition of impending disaster." As a pre- 
monitor I was a success. Disaster was right. 

Wellsie sighed again and spilled the news. 

"We're goin' over th' bleedin' top at nine. 
We don't 'ave to carry no tools. We're in the 
first bloomin' wave." 

Going without tools was supposed to be a 
sort of consolation for being in the first wave. 
The other three waves carry either picks or 
shovels. They consolidate the trenches after 
they have been taken by the first wave. That 
is, they turn the trench around, facing the other 
way, to be ready for a counter attack. It is a 
miserable job. The tools are heavy and awk- 
ward, and the last waves get the cream of the 
artillery fire, as the Boche naturally does not 
want to take the chance of shelling the first 
wave for fear of getting his own men. How- 
ever, the first wave gets the machine-gun 
fire and gets it good. At that the first wave 
is the preference. I have heard hundreds of 



178 BACK ON THE SOMME AGAIN 

men say so. Probably the reason is that a 
bullet, unless it is explosive, makes a relatively 
clean wound, while a shell fragment may man- 
gle fearfully. 

Wells and I were talking over the infernal 
injustice of the situation when another runner 
arrived from the Sergeant Major's, ordering 
us up for the rum issue. I went up for the 
rum and left Wells to break the news about 
going over. 

I got an extra large supply, as the Sergeant 
Major was good humored. It was the last 
rum he ever served. I got enough for the full 
platoon and then some, which was a lot, as 
the platoon was well down in numbers owing 
to casualties. I went among the boys with a 
spoon and the rum in a mess tin and served 
out two tots instead of the customary one. 
After that all hands felt a little better, but not 
much. They were all fagged out after the 
week's hard work. I don't think I ever saw a 
more discouraged lot getting ready to go over. 
For myself I didn't seem to care much, I was 
in such rotten condition physically. I rather 
hoped it would be my last time. 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Last Time over the Top 

A GENERAL cleaning of rifles started, 
although it was dark. Mine was al- 
ready in good shape, and I leaned it against 
the side of the trench and went below for the 
rest of my equipment. While I was gone, a 
shell fragment undid all my work by smashing 
the breech. 

I had seen a new short German rifle in the 
dug-out with a bayonet and ammo, and de- 
cided to use that. I hid all my souvenirs, 
planning to get them when I came out if I 
ever came out. I hadn't much nerve left after 
the bashing I had taken a fortnight before 
and didn't hold much hope. 

Our instructions were of the briefest. It 
was the old story that there would probably 
be little resistance, if any. There would be a 
few machine guns to stop us, but nothing more. 
The situation we had to handle was this : A 



180 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 

certain small sector had held on the attacks 
of the few previous days, and the line had 
bent back around it. All we had to do was 
to straighten the line. We had heard this old 
ghost story too often to believe a word of it. 

. Our place had been designated where we 
were to get into extended formation, and our 
general direction was clear. We filed out of 
the trench at eight-thirty, and as we passed 
the other platoons, — we had been to the 
rear, — they tossed us the familiar farewell 
hail, "The best o' luck, mytie." 

We soon found ourselves in the old sunken 
road that ran in front of Eaucort Abbaye. At 
this point we were not under observation, as 
a rise in the ground would have protected us 
even though it had been daylight. The moon 
was shining brilliantly, and we knew that it 
would not be anything in the nature of a sur- 
prise attack. We got into extended formation 
and waited for the order to advance. I thought 
I should go crazy during that short wait. 
Shells had begun to burst over and around 
us, and I was sure the next would be mine. 

Presently one burst a little behind me, and 



THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 181 

down went Captain Green and the Sergeant 
Major with whom he had been talking. Cap- 
tain Green died a few days later at Rouen, 
and the Sergeant Major lost an arm. This 
was a hard blow right at the start, and it 
spelled disaster. Everything started to go 
wrong. Mr. Blofeld was in command, and 
another officer thought that he was in charge. 
We got conflicting orders, and there was one 
grand mix-up. Eventually we advanced and 
went straight up over the ridge. We walked 
slap-bang into perfectly directed fire. Tor- 
rents of machine-gun bullets crackled about 
us, and we went forward with our heads down, 
like men facing into a storm. It was a living 
marvel that any one could come through it. 

A lot of them didn't. Mr. Blofeld, who was 
near me, leaped in the air, letting go a hideous 
yell. I ran to him, disregarding the instruc- 
tion not to stop to help any one. He was 
struck in the abdomen with an explosive 
bullet and was done for. I felt terribly about 
Mr. Blofeld, as he had been a good friend to 
me. He was the finest type of officer of the 
new English army, the rare sort who can be 



182 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 

democratic and yet command respect. He had 
talked with me often, and I knew of his family 
and home life. He was more like an elder 
brother to me than a superior officer. I left 
Mr. Blofeld and went on. 

The hail of bullets grew even worse. They 
whistled and cracked and squealed, and I began 
to wonder why on earth I didn't get mine. 
Men were falling on all sides and the shrieks 
of those hit were the worst I had Heard. The 
darkness made it worse, and although I had 
been over the top before by daylight this was 
the last limit of hellishness. And nothing but 
plain, unmixed machine-gun fire. As yet there 
was no artillery action to amount to anything. 

Once again I put my hand inside my tunic 
and stroked Dinky and said to him, "For 
God's sake, Dink, see me through this time." 
I meant it too. I was actually praying, — to 
my mascot. I realize that this was plain, un- 
adulterated, heathenish fetish worship, but it 
shows what a man reverts to in the barbaric 
stress of war. 

By this time we were within about thirty 
yards of the Boche parapet and could see them 



THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 183 

standing shoulder to shoulder on the fire step, 
swarms of them, packed in, with the bayonets 
gleaming. Machine guns were emplaced and 
vomiting death at incredibly short intervals 
along the parapet. Flares were going up con- 
tinuously, and it was almost as light as day. 

We were terribly outnumbered, and the 
casualties had already been so great that I 
saw we were in for the worst thing we had 
ever known. Moreover, the next waves hadn't 
appeared behind us. 

I was in command, as all the officers and 
non-coms so far as I could make out had 
snuffed. I signalled to halt and take cover, 
my idea being to wait for the other waves to 
catch up. The men needed no second invita- 
tion to lie low. They rolled into the shell 
holes and burrowed where there was no 
cover. 

I drew a pretty decent hole myself, and a 
man came pitching in on top of me, screaming 
horribly. It was Corporal Hoskins, a close 
friend of mine. He had it in the stomach and 
clicked in a minute or two. 

During the few minutes that I lay in that 



184 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 

hole, I suffered the worst mental anguish I 
ever knew. Seeing so many of my closest 
chums go west so horribly had nearly broken 
me, shaky as I was when the attack started. 
I was dripping with sweat and frightfully 
nauseated. A sudden overpowering impulse 
seized me to get out in the open and have it 
over with. I was ready to die. 

Sooner than I ought, for the second wave 
had not yet shown up, I shrilled the whistle 
and lifted them out. It was a hopeless charge, 
but I was done. I would have gone at them 
alone. Anything to close the act. To blazes 
with everything ! 

As I scrambled out of the shell hole, there 
was a blinding, ear-splitting explosion slightly 
to my left, and I went down. I did not lose 
consciousness entirely. A red-hot iron was 
through my right arm, and some one had hit 
me on the left shoulder with a sledge hammer. 
I felt crushed, — shattered. 

My impressions of the rest of that night 
are, for the most part, vague and indistinct; 
but in spots they stand out clear and vivid. 
The first thing I knew definitely was when 



THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 185 

Smith bent over me, cutting the sleeve out of 
my tunic. 

"It's a Blighty one," says Smithy. That 
was some consolation. I was back in the 
shell hole, or in another, and there were five 
or six other fellows piled in there too. All of 
them were dead except Smith and a man 
named Collins, who had his arm clean off, and 
myself. Smith dressed my wound and Col- 
lins', and said : 

"We'd better get out of here before Fritz 
rushes us. The attack was a ruddy failure, 
and they'll come over and bomb us out of 
here." 

Smith and I got out of the hole and started 
to crawl. It appeared that he had a bullet 
through the thigh, though he hadn't said any- 
thing about it before. We crawled a little way, 
and then the bullets were flying so thick that 
I got an insane desire to run and get away 
from them. I got to my feet and legged it. 
So did Smith, though how he did it with a 
wounded thigh I don't know. 

The next thing I remember I was on a 
stretcher. The beastly thing swayed and 



186 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 

pitched, and I got seasick. Then came 
another crash directly over head, and out I 
went again. When I came to, my head was 
as clear as a bell. A shell had burst over us 
and had killed one stretcher bearer. The 
other had disappeared. Smith was there. 
He and I got to our feet and put our arms 
around each other and staggered on. The 
next I knew I was in the Cough Drop dress- 
ing station, so called from the peculiar for- 
mation of the place. We had tea and rum 
here and a couple of fags from a sergeant 
major of the R. A. M. C. 

After that there was a ride on a flat car on 
a light railway and another in an ambulance 
with an American driver. Snatches of con- 
versation about Broadway and a girl in Newark 
floated back, and I tried to work up ambition 
enough to sing out and ask where the chap 
came from. So far I hadn't had much pain. 
When we landed in a regular dressing station, 
the M. O. gave me another going over and 
said, 

"Blighty for you, son." I had a piece of 
shrapnel or something through the right upper 



THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 187 

arm, clearing the bone and making a hole 
about as big as a half dollar. My left shoulder 
was full of shrapnel fragments, and began to 
pain like fury. More tea. More rum. More 
fags. Another faint. When I woke up the 
next time, somebody was sticking a hypodermic 
needle into my chest with a shot of anti- 
lockjaw serum, and shortly after I was tucked 
away in a white enameled Red Cross train 
with a pretty nurse taking my temperature. 
I loved that nurse. She looked sort of cool 
and holy. 

I finally brought up in General Hospital 
Number 12 in Rouen. I was there four days 
and had a real bath, — a genuine boiling out. 
Also had some shrapnel picked out of my 
anatomy. I got in fairly good shape, though 
still in a good deal of dull pain. It was a glad 
day when they put a batch of us on a train 
for Havre, tagged for Blighty. We went 
direct from the train to the hospital ship, 
Carisbrook Castle. The quarters were good, 
— real bunks, clean sheets, good food, careful 
nurses. It was some different from the crowded 
transport that had taken me over to France. 



188 THE LAST TIME OVER THE TOP 

There were a lot of German prisoners aboard, 
wounded, and we swapped stories with them. 
It was really a lot of fun comparing notes, 
and they were pretty good chaps on the whole. 
They were as glad as we were to see land. 
Their troubles were over for the duration of 
the war. 

Never shall I forget that wonderful morning 
when I looked out and saw again the coast of 
England, hazy under the mists of dawn. It 
looked like the promised land. And it was. 
It meant freedom again from battle, murder, 
and sudden death, from trenches and stenches, 
rats, cooties, and all the rest that goes to make 
up the worst of man-made inventions, war. 

It was Friday the thirteenth. And don't 
let anybody dare say that date is unlucky. 
For it brought me back to the best thing that 
can gladden the eyes of a broken Tommy. 
Blighty! Blighty!! Blighty!!! 



CHAPTER XV 

Bits of Blighty 

T) LIGHTY meant life, — life and happi- 
ness and physical comfort. What we 
had left behind over there was death and 
mutilation and bodily and mental suffering. 
Up from the depths of hell we came and reached 
out our hands with pathetic eagerness to the 
good things that Blighty had for us. 

I never saw a finer sight than the faces of 
those boys, glowing with love, as they strained 
their eyes for the first sight of the homeland. 
Those in the bunks below, unable to move, 
begged those on deck to come down at the 
first land raise and tell them how it all looked. 

A lump swelled in my throat, and I prayed 
that I might never go back to the trenches. 
And I prayed, too, that the brave boys still 
over there might soon be out of it. 

We steamed into the harbor of Southampton 
early in the afternoon. Within an hour all of 



190 BITS OF BLIGHTY 

those that could walk had gone ashore. As we 
got into the waiting trains the civilian popu- 
lace cheered. I, like everybody else I sup- 
pose, had dreamed often of coming back some- 
time as a hero and being greeted as a hero. 
But the cheering, though it came straight 
from the hearts of a grateful people, seemed, 
after all, rather hollow. I wanted to get 
somewhere and rest. 

It seemed good to look out of the windows 
and see the signs printed in English. That 
made it all seem less like a dream. 

I was taken first to the Clearing Hospital 
at Eastleigh. As we got off the train there 
the people cheered again, and among the 
civilians were many wounded men who had 
just recently come back. They knew how we 
felt. 

The first thing at the hospital was a real 
honest-to-God bath. In a tub. With hot 
water ! Heavens, how I wallowed. The or- 
derly helped me and had to drag me out. I'd 
have stayed in that tub all night if he would 
have let me. 

Out of the tub I had clean things straight 




CORPORAL HOLMES WITH STAFF NURSE AND ANOTHER PATIENT, 
AT FULHAM MILITARY HOSPITAL, LONDON, S.W. 



BITS OF BLIGHTY 191 

through, with a neat blue uniform, and for 
once was free of the cooties. The old uniform, 
blood-stained and ragged, went to the baking 
and disinfecting plant. 

That night all of us newly arrived men 
who could went to the Y. M. C. A. to a con- 
cert given in our honor. The chaplain came 
around and cheered us up and gave us good 
fags. 

Next morning I went around to the M. O. 
He looked my arm over and calmly said that 
it would have to come off as gangrene had set 
in. For a moment I wished that piece of 
shrapnel had gone through my head. I pic- 
tured myself going around with only one arm, 
and the prospect didn't look good. 

However, the doctor dressed the arm with 
the greatest care and told me I could go to a 
London hospital as I had asked, for I wanted 
to be near my people at Southall. These 
were the friends I had made before leaving 
Blighty and who had sent me weekly parcels 
and letters. 

I arrived in London on Tuesday and was 
taken in a big Red Cross motor loaned by Sir 



192 BITS OF BLIGHTY 

Charles Dickerson to the Fulham Hospital 
in Hammersmith. I was overjoyed, as the 
hospital was very near Southall, and Mr. and 
Mrs. Puttee were both there to meet me. 

The Sister in charge of my ward, Miss 
Malin, is one of the finest women I have met. 
I owe it to her care and skill that I still have 
my good right arm. She has since married 
and the lucky man has one of the best of 
wives. Miss Malin advised me right at the 
beginning not to submit to an amputation. 

My next few weeks were pretty awful. I 
was in constant pain, and after the old arm 
began to come around under Miss Malin's 
treatment one of the doctors discovered that 
my left hand was queer. It had been some- 
what swollen, but not really bad. The doctor 
insisted upon an X-ray and found a bit of 
shrapnel imbedded. He was all for an opera- 
tion. Operations seemed to be the long suit 
of most of those doctors. I imagine they 
couldn't resist the temptation to get some 
practice with so much cheap material all 
about. I consented this time, and went down 
for the pictures on Lord Mayor's Day. Going 



BITS OF BLIGHTY 193 

to the pictures is Tommy's expression for 
undergoing an anesthetic. 

I was uncbr ether two hours and a half, 
and when I came out of it the left hand was 
all to the bad and has been ever since. There 
followed weeks of agonizing massage treat- 
ments. Between treatments though, I had it 
cushy. 

My friends were very good to me, and several 
Americans entertained me a good deal. I had 
a permanent walking-out pass good from nine 
in the morning until nine at night. I saw 
almost every show in the city, and heard a 
special performance of the Messiah at West- 
minster Abbey. Also I enjoyed a good deal 
of restaurant life. 

London is good to the wounded men. There 
is entertainment for all of them. A good 
many of these slightly wounded complain be- 
cause they cannot get anything to drink, but 
undoubtedly it is the best thing for them. It 
is against the law to serve men in the blue 
uniform of the wounded. Men in khaki can 
buy all the liquor they want, the public houses 
being open from noon to two-thirty and from 



194 BITS OF BLIGHTY 

six p.m. to nine-thirty. Treating is not al- 
lowed. Altogether it works out very well and 
there is little drunkenness among the soldiers. 

I eventually brought up in a Convalescent 
Hospital in Brentford, Middlesex, and was 
there for three weeks. At the end of that 
time I was placed in category C 3. 

The system of marking the men in England 
is by categories, A, B, and C. A 1, 2, and 3 
are for active service. A 4 is for the under- 
aged. B categories are for base service, and 
C is for home service. C 3 was for clerical 
duty, and as I was not likely to become effi- 
cient again as a soldier, it looked like some 
kind of bookkeeping for me for the duration 
of the war. 

Unless one is all shot to pieces, literally 
with something gone, it is hard to get a dis- 
charge from the British army. Back in the 
early days of 1915, a leg off was about the 
only thing that would produce a discharge. 

When I was put at clerical duty, I im- 
mediately began to furnish trouble for the 
British army, not intentionally, of course, 
but quite effectively. The first thing I did 



BITS OF BLIGHTY 195 

was to drop a typewriter and smash it. My 
hands had spells when they absolutely refused 
to work. Usually it was when I had something 
breakable in them. After I had done about 
two hundred dollars' damage indoors they 
tried me out as bayonet instructor. I im- 
mediately dropped a rifle on a concrete walk 
and smashed it. They wanted me to pay for 
it, but the M. O. called attention to the fact 
that I shouldn't have been put at the work 
under my category. 

They then put me back at bookkeeping at 
Command Headquarters, Salisbury, but I 
couldn't figure English money and had a 
bad habit of fainting and falling off the high 
stool. To cap the climax, I finally fell one 
day and knocked down the stovepipe, and 
nearly set the office afire. The M. O. then 
ordered me back to the depot at Winchester 
and recommended me for discharge. I guess 
he thought it would be the cheapest in the 
long run. 

The adjutant at Winchester didn't seem 
any too pleased to see me. He said I looked 
as healthy as a wolf, which I did, and that 



196 BITS OF BLIGHTY 

they would never let me out of the army. He 
seemed to think that my quite normal ap- 
pearance would be looked upon as a personal 
insult by the medical board. I said that I 
was sorry I didn't have a leg or two gone, but 
it couldn't be helped. 

While waiting for the Board, I was sent to 
the German Prison Camp at Winnal Downs 
as corporal of the permanent guard. I began 
to fear that at last they had found something 
that I could do without damaging anything, 
and my visions of the U. S. A. went a-glimmer- 
ing. I was with the Fritzies for over a week, 
and they certainly have it soft and cushy. 

They have as good food as the Tommies. 
They are paid ninepence a day, and the work 
they do is a joke. They are well housed and 
kept clean and have their own canteens, where 
they can buy almost anything in the way of 
delicacies. They are decently treated by the 
English soldiers, who even buy them fags out 
of their own money. The nearest thing I 
ever saw to humiliation of a German was a 
few good-natured jokes at their expense by 
some of the wits in the guard. The English 



BITS OF BLIGHTY 197 

know how to play fair with an enemy when 
they have him down. 

I had about given up hope of ever getting 
out of the army when I was summoned to 
appear before the Travelling Medical Board. 
You can wager I lost no time in appearing. 

The board looked me over with a discourag- 
ing and cynical suspicion. I certainly did 
look as rugged as a navvy. When they gave 
me a going over, they found that my heart 
was out of place and that my left hand might 
never limber up again. They voted for a 
discharge in jig time. I had all I could do 
to keep from howling with joy. 

It was some weeks before the final formalities 
were closed up. The pension board passed on 
my case, and I was given the magnificent sum 
of sixteen shillings and sixpence a week, or 
$3.75. I spent the next few weeks in visiting 
my friends and, eventually, at the 22nd Head- 
quarters at Bermondsey, London, S. C, re- 
ceived the papers that once more made me a 
free man. 

The papers read in part, "He is discharged 
in consequence of paragraph 392, King's Rules 



198 BITS OF BLIGHTY 

and Regulations. No longer fit for service." 
In another part of the book you will find a 
reproduction of the character discharge also 
given. The discharged man also receives a 
little silver badge bearing the inscription, 
"For King and Empire, Services Rendered." 
I think that I value this badge more than any 
other possession. 

Once free, I lost no time in getting my 
passport into shape and engaged a passage 
on the St. Paul, to sail on the second of June. 
Since my discharge is dated the twenty-eighth 
of May, you can see that I didn't waste any 
time. My friends at Southall thought I was 
doing things in a good deal of a hurry. The 
fact is, I was fed up on war. I had had a 
plenty. And I was going to make my get- 
away before the British War Office changed 
its mind and got me back in uniform. Mrs. 
Puttee and her eldest son saw me off at Euston 
Station. Leaving them was the one wrench, 
as they had become very dear to me. But I 
had to go. If Blighty had looked good, the 
thought of the U. S. A. was better. 

My passage was uneventful. No submarines, 



BITS OF BLIGHTY 199 

no bad weather, nothing disagreeable. On the 
eighth day I looked out through a welter of fog 
and rain to the place where the Statue of 
Liberty should have been waving a greeting 
across New York harbor. The lady wasn't 
visible, but I knew she was there. And even 
in a downpour equal to anything furnished by 
the choicest of Flanders rainstorms, little old 
New York looked better than anything I could 
imagine, except sober and staid old Boston. 

That I am at home, safe and free of the 
horrors of war, is to me a strange thing. I 
think it comes into the experience of most of 
the men who have been over there and who 
have been invalided out of the service. Look- 
ing back on the awfulness of the trenches and 
the agonies of mind and body, the sacrifice 
seems to fade into insignificance beside the 
satisfaction of having done a bit in the great 
and just cause. 

Now that our own men are going over, I 
find myself with a very deep regret that I 
cannot go too. I can only wish them the 
best of luck and rest in confidence that every 
man will do his uttermost. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Suggestions for "Sammy" 

T CANNOT end this book without saying 
something to those who have boys over 
there and, what is more to the point, to those 
boys who may go over there. 

First as to the things that should be sent 
in parcels ; and a great deal of consideration 
should be given to this. You must be very 
careful not to send things that will load 
your Sammy down, as every ounce counts 
in the pack when he is hiking, and he is likely 
to be hiking any time or all the time. 

In the line of eatables the soldier wants 
something sweet. Good hard cookies are all 
right. I wish more people in this country 
knew how to make the English plum pudding 
in bags, the kind that will keep forever and 
be good when it is boiled. Mainly, though, 
chocolate is the thing. The milk kind is well 



SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 201 

enough, but it is apt to cause overmuch thirst. 
Personally I would rather have the plain 
chocolate, — the water variety. 

Chewing gum is always in demand and is 
not bulky in the package. Send a lot of it. 
Lime and lemon tablets in the summertime 
are great for checking thirst on the march. A 
few of them won't do any harm in any parcel, 
summer or winter. 

Now about smoking materials. Unless the 
man to whom the parcel is to be sent is defi- 
nitely known to be prejudiced against ciga- 
rettes, don't send him pipe tobacco or a pipe. 
There are smokers who hate cigarettes just as 
there are some people who think that the little 
paper roll is an invention of the devil. If any 
one has a boy over there, he — or she — had 
better overcome any possible personal feeling 
against the use of cigarettes and send them 
in preference to anything else. 

From my own experience I know that ciga- 
rettes are the most important thing that can 
be sent to a soldier. When I went out there, 
I was a pipe smoker. After I had been in the 
trenches a week I quit the pipe and threw it 



202 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 

away. It is seldom enough that one has the 
opportunity to enjoy a full pipe. It is very 
hard to get lighted when the matches are wet 
in bad weather, which is nearly always. Be- 
sides which, say what you will, a pipe does 
not soothe the nerves as a fag does. 

Now when sending the cigarettes out, don't 
try to think of the special brand that Harold 
or Percival used when he was home. Likely 
enough his name has changed, and instead of 
being Percy or Harold he is now Pigeye or 
Sour-belly ; and his taste in the weed has 
changed too. He won't be so keen on his 
own particular brand of Turkish. Just send 
him the common or garden Virginia sort at 
five cents the package. That is the kind that 
gives most comfort to the outworn Tommy or 
Sammy. 

Don't think that you can send too many. 
I have had five hundred sent to me in a week 
many times and have none left at the end. 
There are always men who do not get any 
parcels, and they have to be looked out for. 
Out there all things are common property, and 
the soldier shares his last with his less for- 



SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 203 

tunate comrade. Subscribe when you get the 
chance to any and all smoke funds. 

Don't listen to the pestilential fuddy-duds 
who do not approve of tobacco, particularly 
the fussy-old-maids. Personally, when I hear 
any of these conscientious objectors to My 
Lady Nicotine air their opinions, I wish that 
they could be placed in the trenches for a 
while. They would soon change their minds 
about rum issues and tobacco, and I'll wager 
they would be first in the line when the issues 
came around. 

One thing that many people forget to put 
in the soldier's parcel, or don't see the point 
of, is talcum powder. Razors get dull very 
quickly, and the face gets sore. The powder 
is almost a necessity when one is shaving in 
luke-warm tea and laundry soap, with a safety 
razor blade that wasn't sharp in the first place. 
In the summer on the march men sweat and 
accumulate all the dirt there is in the world. 
There are forty hitherto unsuspected places 
on the body that chafe under the weight of 
equipment. Talc helps. In the matter of 
sore feet, it is a life saver. 



204 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 

Soap, — don't forget that. Always some 
good, pure, plain white soap, like Ivory or 
Castile; and a small bath towel now and 
then. There is so little chance to wash towels 
that they soon get unusable. 

In the way of wearing apparel, socks are 
always good. But, girlie, make 'em right. 
That last pair sent me nearly cost me a 
court martial by my getting my feet into 
trench-foot condition. If you can't leave out 
the seams, wear them yourself for a while, and 
see how you like it. 

Sleeveless sweaters are good and easy to 
make, I am told. They don't last long at 
the best, so should not be elaborate. Any 
garment worn close to the body gets cooty 
in a few weeks and has to be ditched. How- 
ever, keep right on with the knitting, with 
the exception of the socks. If you're not 
an expert on those, better buy them. You 
may in that way retain the affection of your 
sweetheart over there. 

Knitted helmets are a great comfort. I 
had one that was fine not only to wear under 
the tin hat but to sleep in. I am not keen 



SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 205 

on wristlets or gloves. Better buy the gloves 
you send in the shops. So that's the knitted 
stuff, — helmets, sweaters, and mufflers and, 
for the expert, socks. 

Be very moderate in the matter of reading 
matter. I mean by that, don't send a lot at 
a time or any very bulky stuff at all. 

If it is possible to get a louse pomade called 
Harrison's in this country, send it, as it is a 
cooty killer. So far as I know, it is the only 
thing sold that will do the cooty in. There's 
a fortune waiting for the one who compounds 
a louse eradicator that will kill the cooty and 
not irritate or nearly kill the one who uses it. 
I shall expect a royalty from the successful 
chemist who produces the much needed com- 
pound. 

For the wealthier people, I would suggest 
that good things to send are silk shirts and 
drawers. It is possible to get the cooties 
out of these garments much easier than out 
of the thick woollies. There are many other 
things that may be sent, but I have mentioned 
the most important. The main thing to re- 
member is not to run to bulk. And don't 



£06 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 

forget that it takes a long time for stuff to 
get across. 

Don't overlook the letters, — this especially 
if you are a mother, wife, or sweetheart. It 
is an easy thing to forget. You mustn't. Out 
there life is chiefly squalor, filth, and stench. 
The boy gets disgusted and lonesome and 
homesick, even though he may write to the 
contrary. Write to him at least three times 
a week. Always write cheerfully, even al- 
though something may have happened that 
has plunged you into the depths of despair. 
If it is necessary to cover up something that 
would cause a soldier worry, cover it up. 
Even lie to him. It will be justified. Keep 
in mind the now famous war song, "Pack up 
your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, 
smile, smile." Keep your own packed up 
and don't send any over there for some soldier 
to worry over. 

Just a few words to the men themselves who 
may go. Don't take elaborate shaving tackle, 
just brush, razor, soap, and a small mirror. 
Most of the time you won't need the mirror. 
You'll use the periscope mirror in the trenches. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 207 

Don't load up on books and unnecessary cloth- 
ing. Impress it upon your relatives that your 
stuff, tobacco and sweets, is to come along in 
small parcels and often and regularly. Let 
all your friends and relatives know your ad- 
dress and ask them to write often. Don't 
hesitate to tell them all that a parcel now and 
again will be acceptable. Have more than 
one source of supply if possible. 

When you get out there, hunt up the 
Y. M. C. A. huts. You will find good cheer, 
warmth, music, and above all a place to do 
your writing. Write home often. Your people 
are concerned about you all the time. Write 
at least once a week to the one nearest and 
dearest to you. I used to average ten letters 
a week to friends in Blighty and back here, 
and that was a lot more than I was allowed. 
I found a way. Most of you won't be able to 
go over your allowance. But do go the limit. 

Over there you will find a lot of attractive 
girls and women. Most any girl is attractive 
when you are just out of the misery of the 
trenches. Be careful of them. Remember 
the country has been full of soldiers for three 



208 SUGGESTIONS FOR "SAMMY" 

years. Don't make love too easily. One of 
the singers in the Divisional Follies recently 
revived the once popular music-hall song, "If 
You Can't Be Good Be Careful." It should 
appeal to the soldier as much as "Smile, smile, 
smile", and is equally good advice. For the 
sake of those at home and for the sake of your 
own peace of mind come back from overseas 
clean. 

After all it is possible to no more than give 
hints to the boys who are going. All of you 
will have to learn by experience. My parting 
word to you all is just, "The best of luck." 



GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 

All around traverse — A machine gun placed on a swivel 
to turn in any direction. 

Ammo — Ammunition. Usually for rifles, though occa- 
sionally used to indicate that for artillery. 

Argue the toss — Argue the point. 

Back of the line — Anywhere to the rear and out of the 
danger zone. 

Barbed wire — Ordinary barbed wire used for entangle- 
ments. A thicker and heavier military wire is some- 
times used. 

Barrage — Shells dropped simultaneously and in a row 
so as to form a curtain of fire. Literal translation 
" a barrier." 

Bashed — Smashed. 

Big boys — Big guns or the shells they send over. 

Big push — The battles of the Somme. 

Billets — The quarters of the soldier when back of the 
line. Any place from a pigpen to a palace. 

Bleeder or Blighter — Cockney slang for fellow. Roughly 
corresponding to American " guy." 

Blighty — England. East Indian derivation. The para- 
dise looked forward to by all good soldiers, — and 
all bad ones too. 

Blighty one — A wound that will take the soldier to 
Blighty. 



210 GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 

Bloody — The universal Cockney adjective. It is vaguely 
supposed to be highly obscene, though just why 
nobody seems to know. 

Blooming — A meaningless and greatly used adjective. 
Applied to anything and everything. 

Bomb — A hand grenade. 

Bully beef — Corned beef, high grade and good of the 
kind, if you like the kind. It sets hard on the 
chest. 

Carry on — To go ahead with the matter in hand. 

Char — Tea. East Indian derivation. 

Chat — Officers' term for cootie; supposed to be more 
delicate. 

Click — Variously used. To die. To be killed. To 
kill. To draw some disagreeable job, as : I clicked a 
burial fatigue. 

Communication trench — A trench leading up to the 
front trench. 

Consolidate — To turn around and prepare for occupa- 
tion a captured trench.' 

Cootie — The common, — the too common, — body louse. 
Everybody has 'em. 

Crater — A round pit made by an underground explosion 
or by a shell. 

Cushy — Easy. Soft. 

Dixie — An oblong iron pot or box fitting into a field 
kitchen. Used for cooking anything and every- 
thing. Nobody seems to know why it is so called. 

Doggo — Still. Quiet. East Indian derivation. 

Doing in — Killing. 

Doss — Sleep. 



GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 211 

Duck walk — A slatted wooden walk in soft ground. 

Dud — An unexploded shell. A dangerous thing to fool 
with. 

Dug-out — A hole more or less deep in the side of a 
trench where soldiers are supposed to rest. 

Dump — A place where supplies are left for distribution. 

Entrenching tool — A sort of small shovel for quick dig- 
ging. Carried as part of equipment. 

Estaminet — A French saloon or cafe. 

Fag — A cigarette. 

Fatigue — Any kind of work except manning the trenches. 

Fed up — Tommy's way of saying " too much is enough." 

Firing step — A narrow ledge running along the parapet 
on which a soldier stands to look over the top. 

Flare — A star light sent up from a pistol to light up out 
in front. 

Fritz — An affectionate term for our friend the enemy. 

Funk hole — A dug-out. 

Gas — Any poisonous gas sent across when the wind is 
right. Used by both sides. Invented by the 
Germans. 

Goggles — A piece of equipment similar to that used by 
motorists, supposed to keep off tear gas. The rims 
are backed with strips of sponge which Tommy tears 
off and throws the goggle frame away. 

Go west — To die. 

Grouse — Complain. Growl. Kick. 

Hun — A German. 

Identification disc — A fiber tablet bearing the soldier's 
name, regiment, and rank. Worn around the neck 
on a string. 



212 GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 

Iron rations — About two pounds of nonperishable rations 

to be used in an emergency. 
Knuckle knife — A short dagger with a studded hilt. 

Invented by the Germans. 
Lance Corporal — The lowest grade of non-commissioned 

officer. 
Lewis gun — A very light machine gun invented by one 

Lewis, an officer in the American army. 
Light railway — A very narrow-gauge railway on which 

are pushed little hand cars. 
Listening post — One or more men go out in front, at 

night, of course, and listen for movements by the 

enemy. 
Maconochie — A scientifically compounded and well-bal- 
anced ration, so the authorities say. It looks, smells, 

and tastes like rancid lard. 
M. O. — Medical Officer. A foxy cove who can't be 

fooled with faked symptoms. 
Mess tin — A combination teapot, fry pan, and plate. 
Military cross — An officer's decoration for bravery. 
Military medal — A decoration for bravery given to 

enlisted men. 
Mills — The most commonly used hand grenade. 
Minnies — German trench mortar projectiles. 
Napper — The head. 
Night 'ops — A much hated practice manoeuvre done at 

night. 
No Man's Land — The area between the trenches. 
On your own — At liberty. Your time is your own. 
Out or over there — Somewhere in France. 
Parados — The back wall of a trench. 



GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 213 

Parapet — The front wall of a trench. 

Patrol — One or more men who go out in front and prowl 

in the dark, seeking information of the enemy. 
Periscope — A boxlike arrangement with two mirrors 

for looking over the top without exposing the napper. 
Persuader — A short club with a nail-studded head. 
Pip squeak — A German shell which makes that kind of 

noise when it comes over. 
Push up the daisies — To be killed and buried. 
Ration party — A party of men which goes to the rear and 

brings up rations for the front line. 
Rest — Relief from trench service. Mostly one works 

constantly when " resting." 
Ruddy — Same as bloody, but not quite so bad. 
Sandbag — A bag which is filled with mud and used for 

building the parapet. 
Sentry go — Time on guard in the front trench, or at rest 

at headquarters. 
Shell hole — A pit made by the explosion of a shell. 
Souvenir — Any kind of junk picked up for keepsakes. 

Also used as a begging word by the French children. 
Stand to — Order for all men to stand ready in the 

trench in event of a surprise attack, usually at sun- 
down and sunrise. 
Stand down — Countermanding " stand to." 
Stokes — A bomb weighing about eleven pounds usually 

thrown from a mortar, but sometimes used by hand. 
Strafing — One of the few words Tommy has borrowed 

from Fritz. To punish. 
Suicide club — The battalion bombers. 
Tin hat — Steel helmet. 



214 GLOSSARY OF ARMY SLANG 

Wave — A line of men going over the top. 

Whacked — Exhausted. Played out. 

Whiz -bang — A German shell that makes that sort of 
noise. 

Wind up or windy — Nervous. Jumpy. Temporary in- 
voluntary fear. 

Wooden cross — The small wooden cross placed over a 
soldier's grave. 



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ilUfilMwiTn 



WB3BA H 



film 

mm 



•■:.■:■■■•■■■ -i 



